


Jigsaw ice cream cones

by silvervelour



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Babysitter AU, F/F, Masturbation, Period Sex, Smut, katya’s 24, katya’s the butch babysitter, they drink a lot of wine, trixie’s 19, trixie’s the eldest sibling who’s back from college for the summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-03-15 03:31:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 52,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13604640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silvervelour/pseuds/silvervelour
Summary: “Is that who he just called for?”. Trixie checks, receives a singular, brisk nod in response.“Katya, yeah”.Lifting her head, Trixie diverts her gaze to the doorway, watches the short haired blonde bound into the room, with Dylan - the quieter of the twins - hot on her heels.She’s short, is the first thing that Trixie notices. Shorter than Raina and shorter than herself, though taller than Dylan who Trixie’s deemed to be a little over five foot, by now. The shoes that she’s wearing don’t help the matter, she notes. They’re platform-less, unflattering suede brogues that Trixie would have preferred that the world collectively left in the 70’s, despite matching the remainder of her attire relatively well.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi ! welcome back to yet another tiny universe that i’ve fallen in love with
> 
> this was inspired by every author that’s ever written butch katya/trixie (i love you and am eternally grateful for the masterpieces you’ve created), and many nights procrastination
> 
> this will be 10 (ish?) chapters long and i can’t wait for you guys to read it because i’m so excited about some of the things coming up!!
> 
> with that said, i hope you enjoy!! 
> 
> (special shoutout to trixie mattel herself who sang everclear and michelle branch on live stream the other day which inspired me to finally finish this)

Trixie’s heart is lodged in her throat.

It’s throbbing, unwilling to quell its unrelenting pulsing that has persisted since her train had left the station, chugged to life beneath the patterned carriage of seats that shudder with every bump in the tracks.

She can feel her palms sweating as she gazes aimlessly out of the large, rectangular windows that are littered with fingerprints and greasy smudges, and wipes them exasperatedly on the bare skin of her thighs.

They’re as warm as the rest of her body, her flesh pricking red where the carpeted fabric of the seat insists on irritating her further; more than the mother and whining child that have been sitting across the aisle from her for a full two hours.

She’s reaching the end of her tether, and is nothing short of entirely aware of it as she rolls her eyes to herself, allows them to scrunch up indignantly momentarily whilst she attempts to jam her earphones further into her ears. It’s futile - they’re already blasting _Everclear’s Santa Monica_ so loudly that she’s beginning to wish she’d chosen to vacation there for summer break instead - and she knows that the quieter people surrounding her are bound to be able to hear it, even above the shrieks of children and grumbles of old men.

Blinking, she swallows once.

The greenery on the opposite side of the pane of glass to her is blinding, leaves speckles of lime and fern in her eyes that are crossing with the lack of interest she has in the trees, the leaves and what they signify.

She knows that the taller and more closely congregated they get, the nearer she is to platform four of _Merrowbridge_ station, and she knows that she’s not ready; to have to lug her heavy suitcase, filled with nothing but summer clothing, across said station and outside to the taxicab stand that’s bound to be crowded with middle aged couples and their grandchildren.

It feels like taking two steps back after she’s taken one huge one forward, even if she knows that she’ll be there - back in her family home - _voluntarily_. She’ll have the ability to leave with a click of her fingers where as she didn’t before, when high school was still compulsory and her college applications were still being considered meticulously.

She can feel the bones of her spine aching with how long she’s sat, with her chunky suitcase squashed uncomfortably between her shins and the seat in front of her. It’s leaving red indentations in her knees, the plastic shell of the case making her skin sweat more than she cares for in the enclosed space, where the outdated and rugged train carriage is fitted with windows that remain sealed shut.

It has her itching to be back in Chicago already, in her college dorm room with Pearl; she wishes she could spend the summer months with her rambling aimlessly about the _old masters_ and _the renaissance_ , as Trixie buries her head in a stack of French novels that she one day hopes to understand fully.

She has one of them in her backpack - _The flowers of evil_ \- that she’d borrowed from the library in the centre of campus during one of her late night scouts, and plans to work her way through it for the majority of the summer, absorbing each phrase and accent until she’s able to comprehend _Baudelaire’s_ portrayal of decadence and eroticism that have always had her intrigued.

Trixie’s figures that she’ll do so, over text conversations with Sasha and Max that’ll undoubtedly lead her to second guessing each sentence and paragraph even when she believes that she’s dissected each word. She doesn’t mind, she knows that they understand it better than she can at this point - they’re native speakers whereas Trixie’s barely fluent - having only picked up the language from her years in school.

It’s a glint of normality that she’s seeking to hold onto when she steps off of the train, the wheels of her suitcase kicking dried dust up to her clammy calves. She waits for her cab in _Milwaukee_ , with her mind still in _Chicago_ , bouncing between classes and social get-ups that she knows she’s going to be gagging for by the end of the coming week.

 _Merrowbridge_ can’t provide the entertainment that Trixie requires, it’s a fact that she knows to be true. Her nearest neighbours are ten minutes away, the closest grocery store a solid twenty by car if the narrow country lanes aren’t littered with farmers tractors and stray bovine that are being led from one field to the next.

Trixie wishes that she thought differently of her home town. She wants to find solace in the silence and serenity, the peace and the quiet. She thinks that she could, if she tried hard enough, saw past the modesty of the three story, five bedroom house that she grew up in that she can see approaching through fields of wheat and barely.

She sighs, and cranes her neck until it clicks satisfyingly.

It’s not the most homely; all clinical white walls and dark wood floors that are indicative of most country homes in the area, Trixie knows. The front door is a panel of black gloss amidst cream painted bricks, and Trixie shifts in her worn out gym shorts and scruffy sweatshirt as she feels for the key to it in her pocket.

She’s uncertain as to whether her father is home. She hopes not - she looks pretty unpresentable, she thinks, with her greasy and straggly hair scraped back into a bun - and toys with flipping the key between her thumb, index and middle fingers.

The metal is warm from having been tucked into the fabric of her shorts, and it leaves Trixie with even sweatier fingertips that she rubs across her makeup free face, her pores shining with excess oils.

She sniffs, hiccups as her cab driver hurdles around the final corner on the road to her house at a speed which Trixie deems questionable. He’s unbothered, Trixie’s established, he’s getting his twenty bucks regardless of what shape Trixie arrives at her front porch in, with the thought of seeing her siblings in the flesh for the first time in a little under a year; and who Trixie’s father has hired to look after them this year.

The thought makes her roll her eyes as she exits the cab, hauls her suitcase and backpack out of the trunk, because her driver isn’t going to do it for after she refused to tip him, tossing two rolled up ten dollar bills into the front seat.

Trixie doubts that she’ll be greeted with a familiar face. The woman that had been hired last year had vowed to not return this year, after Trixie’s younger twin brothers - _Dylan_ and _Riley_ \- had wound her up to the extent that Trixie had found her crying, booking the nearest flight out of the state on her phone as she sat on the patio steps of their backyard.

She knows that they mean no harm, really. They’re hyperactive, zealous preteens that are both excitable and draining, and the ultimate cause of very few of the baby sitters ever returning for a second serving of the _Mattel’s_.

The longest Trixie’s able to recall is Maggie; a sweet, elder woman who had overseen the two whole summers between Trixie’s freshman and sophomore years of high school, along with Trixie’s younger sister _Raina’s_ somewhat rebellious phase. She’d left the state, then, moved back to the west coast in order to be with family of her own, look after her eldest sons grandchildren that she both loved and adored.

Trixie doesn’t blame her.

She doesn’t think that she could ever manage their job - her father calls it a myriad of things, from live in nanny to housekeeper or baby sitter of teenagers and preteens - even if she was guaranteed to be payed with the sumptuous wad of upfront cash that she knew her father always guaranteed his employees.

It’s a comforting thought that trails its way through Trixie’s mind as she saunters up the driveway to her front door, steps straight through the unlocked threshold.

The change in temperature compared to outside is instantaneous. The air conditioned air of the hallway kisses at her skin, causes irregular goosebumps to appear on her blotchy, sun beaten legs that are still damp with sweat and over heated from the seemingly Saharan conditions. The lighting is cooler, too. More blue and less orange that had left Trixie seeing splotches every time she blinked, flickered her eyes up from the dark flooring and to the bleached, cobweb lacking ceilings.

Everything’s quiet, and her ears buzz with the silence until she reaches the kitchen. She drags her suitcase behind her, knowing and disregarding that she must be tracking dust throughout the house, into the kitchen that’s all marble and slate, tall cabinets and gleaming counter tops.

It’s a superficial sight, as is Trixie’s father whom she spots first, still stood in his suit - Trixie knows it means he’s leaving for business reasons again soon - with his tan leather briefcase that’s sat on one of the aforementioned counter tops.

She can see how the creases in his forehead and the crinkles around his eyes appear deeper than when she saw him last, even in the brightly lit space that’s making her vision blur, a little. He looks older, more weathered than Trixie’s ever picked up on, but it feels fitting.

Trixie feels older also, after trudging through her first year at college. She can feel her youthful glow dissipating with every paper that she writes, every essay that she turns in to her cultured professors that eye her suspiciously when she sits in her pale neutral clothing, her silver accessories that reflect the light of the pixelated projector.

She can’t pin point where her desire and lust for life has escaped to - she feels exhausted, most of the time, and envies the energy that she can see radiating off of her sister, who she can see scouring the inside of their two door fridge, mumbling exasperatedly to herself.

Trixie picks up on a groan about the _lack of pasta_ and relents, sets her suitcase down with a thud that echoes, reverberates off of the high ceilings and thick walls. It causes her father to halt his mutterings, and her sister to whip her head in Trixie’s general direction.

Her eyes boggle when she does so, though Trixie’s father is the first to paint a nonchalant grin across his face. It looks as if it pains him, causes his jaw to tighten as he grimaces, Trixie notes, though she appreciates the effort that he’s casting her way; even if it’s orchestrated.

“ _Trixie_!”.

“Hey, dad”. Trixie nods in response. She can feel a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her lips, causing the muscles in her cheek to twitch, and thanks whatever god she believes in for giving her the shred of humane compassion that her father seems to be lacking, with his impish greeting and lacklustre behaviour.

Clearing her throat, Trixie glances down towards her feet, though straightens the aching bones of her spine with pride. She can see her sister observing her cautiously from the corner of her, as if she too can sense the tension that’s unwittingly building, brick by brick between Trixie and her father.

It’s a wall that Trixie wants to demolish, with the vase that sits on the kitchen table, packed with lily’s that are closer to wilting then they should be in the frigid air of the room. She wants to clatter it against the tiles of the floor, send it cracking into microscopic fragments and smithereens, but then her fathers slumping his shoulders noticeably, softening the smile upon his face.

“How was your journey back?”. He questions, adjusting his tie with both of his hands.

Trixie can feel him tip toeing around her, and she wishes that he wouldn’t. It feels inexplicably awkward - she knows that he’s itching to bolt out of the door already - and Trixie’s ready to fall asleep, whether she makes it to bed or not. Her eyelids feel heavy, drooping so that her vision crosses a little with the pressure that’s being exerted on her pupils, her irises and under eye bags.

She knows that it’s on her to begin putting an end to the interaction that’s verging on becoming unbearably uncomfortable, so she blinks rapidly, crosses her legs at the ankles and braces her elbow on the handle of her suitcase.

“Good, _yeah_ ”. Trixie confirms.

She’s biting at the insides of her cheeks, until she’s able to taste the metallic essence of blood that’s drawn to the surface from how hard she’s gnawing, how actively she’s attempting to remain cheery. She looks on as her father nods dismissively once again - it’s a sign that the brief homecoming is over, Trixie’s nothing short of grateful - and reads his lips as they mumble good.

 _Good_ , Trixie snickers.

“Look-“. Her father begins. “-I have to leave in fifteen or so. My car is picking me up-“.

He pauses once again, glides his fingertips and his short, bitten nails through his greying hair that’s slicked back with too much gel. It’s a sight that has Trixie’s stomach churning, and her sister huffing behind her. Raina closes the fridge with a harsh slam, takes a step closer to Trixie who’s changing the position of her body once again.

There’s not a limb in her body that she’s able to pin point that doesn’t hurt, Trixie already knows. She can feel her feet and ankles swelling from the heat - they’re encased in sneakers that are probably half a size too small for her, though she’ll continue to wear them because she got them for such a discounted price, she swears - and longs to be able to soak them in the boiling waters of her en suite bathtub.

Her eyes flutter closed momentarily at the thought, as her father continues to utter out his tightly scheduled plans.

“-I’ll be back in a month or so-“. He reassures, clasps both of his hands together.

“-You’ll be fine, I’m sure. This is your home after all, right?”.

“ _Right_ -”. She echoes.

Trixie can feel her nostrils flaring, and can almost hear the sarcasm that’s threatening to begin to drop from her tone of voice that’s already become less than pleasant, less than kind. She lacks the patience for unnecessary formalities and fakery that’s becoming so evident in the passing minutes and fleeting words that are shared, and forces herself to extend a branch that doesn’t feel forged.

“-Where are you heading?”. She adds, arches her eyebrow.

The action allows the pulsing in her forehead to cease, if only until she lowers it again once she’s certain that her father has taken in her query, absorbed it into his mind. He puffs out his chest, until he’s standing so straight that Trixie’s sure it’s not a natural posture to have, with his feet spread three whole kitchen tiles apart.

“I think London, this time. You’ve been there, haven’t you dear?”. He deadpans.

His disingenuous interest causes Trixie’s shoulders to sag further, and allows any hope that she had remaining within to dwindle to nothing, shrivel to a a coil of aggravation in the pit of her stomach. It has her rolling her eyes involuntarily as he turns his back, and she clicks her tongue against her upper row of teeth to emphasise her infuriation.

“That was France, dad. I study _French_ ”.

Trixie turns away too, then, fishes for a bottle of water in the vibrating fridge now than Raina has stepped aside. Trixie’s clammy fingers of one hand wrap around the chilled neck of the bottle, as she taps Raina gently on the shoulder with the other. Her skin is cool in comparison to Trixie’s, and the elder is made instantly envious of her calm and collected state; how she seemingly hasn’t broken a sweat all day in the simmering heat of the country side.

It’s maddening, Trixie decides - she feels like she’s been boiling away for weeks on end - but Raina’s flinching mockingly, moving her body so that both herself and Trixie are able to rest their hips against the nearby breakfast bar.

The marble is a slab of ice against Trixie’s overheated skin, even through her clothing, and she’s thankful for it even as a frigid blast of air from the air conditioning vent that’s installed in the ceiling above her beats down upon her forehead, that’s prickled with beads of sweat.

Lifting her arm, Trixie reaches out lazily in order to ruffle a section of Raina’s hair. It’s grown, Trixie notes, from the long bob that she remembers into a shaggy style that grazes her chest. It’s lighter, also, having been lifted a level or two by the nearest salon, she assumes.

It suits her, much more then any hairstyle Trixie is able to recall herself experimenting with when she was sixteen; half up and half down do’s that had looked more kindergarten than the effortless early _2000’s_ look she had been going for, and French braids that she still sometimes wears.

Chuckling lowly, Raina Shakes Trixie’s hand away.

“Don’t touch me”. She grumbles, despite the gleeful grin that’s plastered across her face, causing her umber eyes that are more than similar to Trixie’s to light up, crinkle noticeably at the corners. Trixie scoffs, crosses her arms over her chest that’s heaving as she takes deep breath after deep breath.

“Sorry, asshole-“. Banters Trixie. “-Just wanted to say you’re looking great”.

Raina’s smile is wide, initially - it makes Trixie feel almost glad to be back - before it transforms into one that is tight lipped. She stands to attention, then, grumbled unintelligibly towards their father who’s shouting directions down the corridor, towards the vague direction of the living room that Trixie had consciously bypassed on her trek to the kitchen.

“I’m kinda _so_ glad you’re back”. Raina directs her words at Trixie once again, leaning further into Trixie’s space so that Trixie’s made aware of the fact that she’s serious. She’s more than glad, really, Trixie knows, from the childlike enthusiasm that’s sprouting from her veins, dripping into pools around them.

It’s why Trixie’s careful not to slip as she guesses that she’s glad to be back too, in some ways. She misses Raina when she’s out of state, along with Dylan and Riley, even if Trixie sometimes swears that the three of the combined have dedicated their lives to ensuring Trixie’s hair is entirely grey by the age of thirty.

She laughs despite her thoughts, and nudges Raina with her elbow.

“Well you’re stuck with me until September, so good”. Trixie concurs.

Raina sighs in relief, and turns to face Trixie fully. Trixie’s able to see from the angle that she’s standing that Raina has done so in order to be able to cast glances across Trixie’s shoulder - she’s an inch or so taller than Trixie at five foot eight, at only sixteen - though Trixie refrains from mirroring her movements momentarily.

“Thank god-“. Raina begins, widening her eyes.

“-The new sitter is _weird_ ”. She exaggerates, motions for Trixie to finally cast her eyes over towards her father, who’s standing, now hunchbacked, in the archer doorway to the kitchen. His right foot is tapping impatiently, and Trixie silently begs him to stop; it’s a habit that she’s unknowingly picked up for herself.

Trixie does as Raina requests, and turns in order to rest her elbows on the surface of the breakfast bar. She’s able to balance her chin in the palms of her hands, and doesn’t fret about moving when Raina copies her, slouches so that she’s shoulder to shoulder with Trixie, her bare arm brushing Trixie’s sweatshirt clad one.

“Is that who he just called for?”. Trixie checks, receives a singular, brisk nod in response.

“ _Katya_ , yeah”.

Lifting her head, Trixie diverts her gaze to the doorway, watches the short haired blonde bound into the room, with Dylan - the quieter of the twins - hot on her heels.

She’s short, is the first thing that Trixie notices. Shorter than Raina and shorter than herself, though taller than Dylan who Trixie’s deemed to be a little over five foot, by now. The shoes that she’s wearing don’t help the matter, she notes. They’re platform-less, unflattering suede brogues that Trixie would have preferred that the world collectively left in the _70’s_ , despite matching the remainder of her attire relatively well.

Her pants are denim, dark wash with acid faded thighs that are accentuated with rips and patchworks - Trixie’s yet to work out if they’re deliberate or not, or whether they’re a well worn in item of clothing - and her shirt is plaid, all burgundy and navy and _green_.

She’s rolled the sleeves of it up a cuff or two, making the short sleeves even shorter; into a vest cut style so that her tanned, lightly hairy arms can be seen tensing with each movement.

Trixie doesn’t dwell on the sight, instead trails her gaze up to her face. Her eyes are bright, wide and - _green_? - Trixie doesn’t know, she isn’t wearing her glasses or her contact lenses like she normally does, and is left with short sight that’s beyond inconvenient, she thinks.

Her hair is natural, Trixie concludes. She’s unable to detect even an inch of root that would be there if she had dyed it, bleached it up to the dusky blonde that it is now, shiny and healthy and falling into her eyes with the breeze of the air conditioner as she pads across the room.

Trixie’s father follows her, and then stops when he reaches the breakfast bar where herself and Raina are still settled. Dylan is tucked close to the woman’s - katya’s - back, is leaning subconsciously closer to her as she nods her head in greeting at both Trixie and Raina, hooks her thumbs in pockets of her pants. Watching her do so, Trixie sniffs, before she’s interrupted by her father clearing his throat once again.

She refrains from rolling her eyes.

“Katya, this is my eldest, Trixie. Trixie, this is Katya, this years sitter”. He barks, and Trixie’s left nodding her head yet again - it hurts her neck and she regrets it immediately - in Katya’s direction.

“It’s uh - nice to meet you”. Trixie chooses her words carefully, and is briefly floored by how Katya opts to grin in response, sticks out her hand for shaking in lieu of allowing Trixie to suffer a further nonsensical interaction. She squeezes Trixie’s hand with vigour, and Trixie thanks her silently through her eyes that are gleaming, sleep gathering in the inner corners of them.

“You too!-“. Katya retracts her hand smoothly, brushes it against the buzzed sides of her head. “-Just got back from college?”.

She’s zany, almost as hyper as Riley who she can hear muffled through the walls, screaming into the headset of his games console that sits in his room, a full floor above them. It’s endearing, despite how commanding her presence is; Trixie’s in awe of how the kitchen is _hers_ , how she’s walking straight past Trixie, then, swinging open the fridge.

“Yeah”. Trixie yawns, chuckles unamused.

“Wonderful! I love an educated woman”. She projects, her voice echoing as she rummages through the shelves of the fridge, browses the different items that she can see before pulling out the ingredients that she needs to make something, Trixie doesn’t know what.

Dylan stands by eagerly, and the sight draws an airy giggle from Trixie’s lips. She knows that he’s probably - definitely - sweet talked Katya, convinced her to allow him to help cook whatever it is that he’s requested. If Trixie knows him well enough, it’ll be burgers, and she thinks that it is, from the slices of cheese that Katya’s tossed down onto the countertop.

Trixie grimaces; she can already see flashes of the chaos that’s bound to ensue.

“I guess I’m not getting any pasta today”. Her sister dramatises.

Raina sighs next to her, then, and before Trixie’s able to straighten her back, she’s gone, slouching past Trixie and her dad, mumbling a _great to have you back, idiot_ , which leaves Trixie’s face adorned with a relaxed smile.

“I’ll make you pasta as soon as I’m done here!”. Katya calls after her, her eyebrows raised quizzically until Raina throws a thumbs up over her shoulder - Trixie wants to kick her for her ungrateful behaviour - and begins slugging her way to her room.

Trixie can hear the staircase creak with every step that she takes, and is reminded of the age of the house as she stands to attention, rounds the breakfast bar in order to grasp ahold of the handle of her suitcase. She throws her backpack more securely over her shoulder, too, before signalling to her father that she’s about to trail up the stairs, sending a tentative smile towards Katya as she does so.

“I’m ‘gonna take this to my room. I’ll see ‘ya, dad?”. Trixie checks, to which her father gives her the go ahead that she’s been seeking. She sighs with relief, and already has her fingers around the hair tie in her hair, ready to tug it free, send her matted hair cascading down her shoulders and spine.

“Give me a hug, kid-“. Her father relents. “-I’ll probably be gone by the time you come down for dinner”.

Trixie sighs and does so, then stalks up the spiral staircase towards her room. She’s managed to work her phone out of her pocket by the time she reaches her bedroom door, too, and taps her fingers nimbly across the screen. It reads five in the afternoon, and the information draws an overwhelmed sigh from Trixie’s lungs as she perches on the edge of her bed -

_Takes time in reacquainting herself with the familiar surroundings._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh, French!-“. Katya beams. “-Parlez-vous couramment?”.
> 
> Are you fluent. Trixie’s eyes widen, and awe clouds her face as she feels all of the blood in her body rushing to her head. It pulses, and Katya’s right in front of her, looking on expectantly as Trixie chokes on her words.
> 
> “Oui”. She succeeds in stammering, her tongue becoming lazy in curving around each vowel. Katya grins excitedly back at her, and Trixie marvels at the interest she’s seemingly taking in Trixie’s life that seems impertinent, now, with the Milwaukee landscapes peeking in from the window of hers - her fathers - kitchen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ch.2!!
> 
> i just want to say thank you guys so so much for all of the lovely feedback on the first part!! it truly means a lot, and though i’m not entirely happy with the way this chapter turned out, i hope you’ll still like it??
> 
> let me know what you think!<3

Trixie is asleep by six in the evening, and awake again by ten at night.

After she gathers herself, familiarises her legs with the walk from her bedroom to her own bathroom once again, she strips herself of her clothing. She showers her overheated body in a bottle of lavender shower gel that has been half empty, standing in the cabinet above the sink for longer than she’s able to remember, and allows the cold water to soothe her; wash away the murk of travelling.

She folds her hair into a loose braid when she emerges, and dresses herself in underwear and a fleecy, oversized sweatshirt that’s bound to cause her skin to sweat once again, before diving under the covers of her pillowy, memory foam bed.

The spongey fabric is soft against her spine, and she relaxes into it instantly, luxuriates in the feeling of serenity that washes over her.

Her mind is already half asleep, too, and she can feel the breeze that’s drifting in through her open bedroom window, flowing under the bedding and across her legs that are still damp from the shower.

She falls into a slumber with her hands scrunched into the thin sheet that tops the mattress, her face buried into the stack of pillows and her legs intertwined with the duvet cover. It’s supple against her skin - a fact which she’s more than pleased about - and is reminded of the rough, carpeted seat of the train from earlier in the day; all scratchy and unpleasant and _hideous_.

It’s irrelevant, though, because then she’s waking up, her mouth dry and chalky and her eyes blurred with sleep. They burn a little, until she blinks away the watery film and sits up, straightens her back against the headboard of her bed.

A yawn takes over her face as she stretches her arms above her head, seeks to be able to press her fingertips into the grooves of the ceiling above. She can’t - it’s _stupid_ , she knows - so she lowers them once again, feels them whack back down onto the duvet, watches the air get knocked out of the fabric.

She sighs, clicks the joints of her knees.

Her surroundings are still baffling her, to some extent. The picture frames that she had hung on her walls during high school are still up, as is her poster of a theatre production she had starred in when she had been in her senior year. Her closet remains untouched also, with the items of clothing that she hadn’t taken to college gathering dust on hangers and drawers in the walk in storage section of her room.

She feels like she’s sitting in a time capsule, waiting to be dragged up from underneath piles of dirt and into the present, with her siblings sat patiently in their own rooms down the hallway. Part of her likes it and part of her doesn’t, as she stares down the lilac beanie baby that’s sat on her dresser next to her mirror, threatening to fold in on itself.

Throwing back the covers of her bed, she swings her legs over the edge.

The window to the room is still open, and she makes quick work of standing, hustling to close it because it’s night, now, and _Milwaukee_ nights are a lot colder than the ones that she’s become used to in _Chicago_ , she notes.

Her feet pad quietly across the dark wood floor as she does so, until they meet the throw rug that she has placed tactically in the centre of the room. It’s a welcoming contrast to the cold, frigid planks of wood, and she curls her toes into the soft wool.

The threads weave themselves between her toes, tickle at her ankles until she steps off of the rug, back onto the bitter floor that sends chills up her calves and to her knees. She shivers, and hurries to the set of white glossed drawers that sit opposite her bed.

She fishes out a pair of socks - they don’t match, one is red and the other is navy with green stripes - and pulls them onto her feet briskly. The wool is as soft as the rug, if not more so, and she’s grateful as she crosses the length of the room once again, draws her curtains closed and picks up her phone from where it’s sitting on her bedside table.

It’s ten fifteen, and her stomach rumbles when she opens one of five texts that have been sent to one of her group chats. Kim’s had sushi for dinner, and Trixie finds herself missing _Chicago_ more than she though she would already, in her spacious room in _Milwaukee_.

There’s no sushi place for miles, she knows, and works on temporarily erasing the habit that she’s gained for turning up to the twenty four hour sushi place that had been a ten or so minute walk from her dorm room, at admittedly ridiculous times of the day.

She knows she’s going to have to settle for a grilled cheese at best, or maybe there’ll be some left over pasta that Katya had made for Raina, if she’s lucky, she thinks, and a glass of cold juice from the fridge. It’s bitter sweet - she misses home food but it lacks the variety she’s become accustomed to - but then she’s typing out a sarcastic reply to Kim, and switching off her phone once again before tossing it onto her bed.

It bounces once, _twice_ , and then she’s cracking open her bedroom door, sauntering down the long corridor and towards the spiral staircase. She passes both of her brothers’ rooms which are silent, and assumes that they’re probably asleep, by now. They tire themselves out quickly compared to Raina, who Trixie can hear audibly, even through the thick walls and tough doors, rambling into the speaker of her phone; presumably.

Trixie envies her enthusiasm, how energetic she seems whilst Trixie’s stumbling inelegantly down the stairs, watching her feet as she goes. She doesn’t want to slip - her socks are as slippery as the wooden staircase - and is cautious of where she places her heels, her toes and the balls of her feet.

It’s dark when she arrives in the foyer, and her hands busy themselves with tugging her oversized sweater that’s risen up as she’s walked, further down her thighs. She’s wearing underwear, burgundy boxer briefs that are less than flattering, but it’s cold, unquestionably so, so she pulls the fabric tighter around her body.

She sighs, pauses momentarily next to one of the radiators lining the hallway.

The heat radiates through her body when she leans her hip against it and halts her walk, casts her eyes over to the living room doorway. She can see from the angle that she’s stood that the lights there are switched off, though the ones in the kitchen remain glowing, blasting, illuminating the end of the next corridor.

Trixie picks up the pace of her steps yet again, passes aforementioned living room, along with the dining room and sun lounge that are rarely ever used, before she’s standing in the arched doorway to the kitchen, her shoulder propped up against the edge.

The bright lights emanating from the cabinets and the ceiling act as pins against her eyes. They scratch painfully, leave her seeing ivy and fuchsia so that she’s forced to blink her eyes rapidly, rub at them with the tips of her fingers. She does so for numerous seconds, until her sights clears and her knuckles ache as much as the entirety of her body, sore from travel and the bundled up position that she’d fallen asleep in.

Shaking her head, albeit to herself, Trixie pushes herself off of the edge of the doorway, strides further into the room.

In front of her, Katya’s sat at the breakfast bar, her back facing Trixie. She’s slouched, with her head resting on one hand as the other flips through a dense book, Trixie observes. There’s a mug to the side of her, too, adorned with _my little pony_ decals - it’s an original, Trixie can remember it belonging to her as a child - and a tall bottle of wine that’s dripping with condensation.

Trixie’s first thought is that she wants to drain the whole bottle, gulp it down so that her throat no longer feels as raw and her tongue no longer as dry. She wants to feel it trickle into her stomach, settle in her gut until she can feel the alcohol thrumming in her veins, lifting the pressure in her head.

She wants to feel blissfully drunk.

Keeping her eyes focused on the back of Katya, she thinks that she deserves it, maybe. She’s bookmarked this day as one of the worst that she’s lived through in a while, despite the minuscule family reunion and the knowledge that she’s gotten through her first year of college, ranked as one of the best achieving in her class.

It feels good, but the idea of falling back to sleep, her whole body buzzing with wine fuelled electricity, is more alluring than she thought it would be. Inhaling, she takes a step closer to Katya, feels her socks skid along the tiled floor.

“D’ya have any more?”. Trixie breaks the silence.

She watches as Katya’s spine jumps, straightens, and then tenses beneath her tank top. It’s grey and tight and Trixie already knows that she’s not wearing a bra underneath it - she’s not sure what to do with the fragment of information - when she takes two tentative steps nearer.

“Oh, _sorry_ ”. Trixie mumbles, giggling lowly out of her pursed lips. It’s barely audible even in the quiet of the room, the faint clicks of the radiator in the corner, but then Katya’s shaking her head, breathing hastily out of her flared nostrils.

“Want some?”. Katya replies gently.

She’s turned her head towards Trixie, has lowered one of her legs that are bare, clad only from the knees up in basketball shorts, from the bottom of the stool. Her eyes are still wide, boggled, but she’s casting an encouraging smile over her shoulder towards Trixie, who’s eyeing the tendons in Katya’s shoulders as they flex, and then slump.

Walking hastily, Trixie rounds the breakfast bar. She sits on the stool that’s on the other side of the bar from Katya, hooks her feet onto the coolness of the metal bar at the bottom. The action causes goosebumps to arise on her skin, allows her to bundle her hands up in the sleeves of her sweater.

Katya folds the corner of the page in her book in order to remember it for a future occasion as she does so, and then she’s standing, making her way to the cupboard that’s located above the sink. She retrieves Trixie’s favourite mug - it’s bigger than Katya’s _my little pony_ one and has a floral pattern painted up and across the handle - sets it down on the breakfast bar before Trixie’s able to protest.

“I’ll take the whole bottle”. Trixie muses, unravelling her hands from the cuffs of sweater that she’s formed around them. She taps her nails across the marble of the countertop, and smiles gratefully up towards Katya, who’s sitting back down, nudging the bottle of wine in Trixie’s direction.

“You’ve got the right idea”. Katya affirms, raking her hands through her hair.

Nodding in agreement, Trixie grasps ahold of the bottle, begins pouring the burgundy liquid into her cup as she takes in Katya’s seemingly dishevelled appearance. She looks fresh from the shower, Trixie establishes, from how her short hair is slicked back with water, the shaved sections at the back and sides already drying in the humidity that seems to be building in the room.

The straps of her tank top have slipped, too, though she hasn’t bothered re adjusting them, settling them back on her shoulders that are somewhere between tanned and sunburnt; Trixie can’t work out which, specifically.

Her face is what Trixie’s orbs land on, eventually. Her skin looks polished, freshly washed and exfoliated, as do her lips - Trixie decides she’s either wearing chapstick or Vaseline - which curve over the edge of her mug when she lifts it with both hands, eagerly and vigorously.

“Mhm, you bet I do”. Trixie breathes as she continues her observations.

The hairs of her eyebrows are unkept, unruly, all brushed in opposite directions from careless wipes and brushes of her hands that are gripping her mug so tightly that her knuckles are turning white, contrasting the redness of the remainder of her skin. Her eyelashes don’t seem to match - they’re dark and flutter airily whenever she blinks - and Trixie forces herself to divert her gaze when her cup is filled to the brim.

“Thirsty?”. Katya jabs, pulls Trixie out of her regardful state.

Trixie snickers, and sets the bottle down with one hand as she lifts her mug to her mouth with the other. She swallows it down until the cup is no longer over flowing, and swipes her tongue across her top lip afterwards in order to rid herself of any stains. The action seems futile as Katya chuckles, cocks an eyebrow.

She sets the mug down again.

“More like I’ve just survived my first year of college so I’m celebrating the only way I can in the _middle of fucking nowhere_ ”. Trixie settles for, swirling around the wine in her mug that’s already half empty.

She takes a further sip, another two, _three_ , and takes in the understanding nod that Katya throws her way. She’s smiling empathetically at Trixie, teeth gnawing and nibbling at her bottom lip as if she knows.

Trixie thinks that she does, from how Katya’s short, clipped nails begin tapping at the porcelain of the cup in her hands, proceed with crafting a nonsensical rhythm that starts and stops, starts and stops. Her eyes scream knowledge, and then worry, as she clocks Trixie downing the dregs of wine that are left in her cup.

It’s laughable, Trixie almost thinks, she’s country born and bred and can _hold her alcohol._

“Where do you go to college?”. Katya dodges, allows the frown that’s settled upon Trixie’s face to lessen. It does so, momentarily, but then Trixie’s tilting her head to one side, scrunching up her nose and eyebrows in both curiosity and disappointment.

“Haven’t you had the whole ‘what my kids do’ talk from my dad?”. Trixie queries, neutralising her facial expression as she reaches for the abandoned bottle of wine. The glass of the bottle is thawing with the room temperature, and has left a puddle of condensation at its base on the counter top.

Trixie swirls her pointer finger in it, and wipes it on the bare skin of her thigh when she begins refilling her cup. It leaves the bottle of wine half empty, and then even less when Katya tops up her own mug that’s running out of substance.

“I don’t think he had the time”. Katya laughs.

She looks apologetic, and grimaces when Trixie’s face saddens noticeably. She stares into her mug that’s a riptide of wine, and watches it become paint, and then blood, until she’s sipping at it again, feeling the burn of the fruit against her throat that’s no longer as dry but is still just as sore.

“He’s a busy man, I guess-”. Trixie states blankly, to which Katya hums nonchalantly.

“-But yeah, Chicago. French language and literature”. She finishes, maintaining eye contact with Katya, who’s lids she can see beginning to droop with both exhaustion and the effects of the alcohol, most likely. Her words have begun to become drawn out, too, slurred at the ends of her sentences.

Trixie doesn’t know how long that she’s been drinking for, but assumes that it’s a while from how bloodshot and dazed her pupils are, how she keeps attempting to push back her longer strands of hair that refuse to stay out of her way.

It makes her chuckle, but then Katya’s perking up again, her eyes widening to the extent that Trixie’s second guessing her theory - that she’s maybe simply tired and not drunk - as she swivels on the bar stool.

“Oh, French!-“. Katya beams. “-Parlez-vous couramment?”.

 _Are you fluent_. Trixie’s eyes widen, and awe clouds her face as she feels all of the blood in her body rushing to her head. It pulses, and Katya’s right in front of her, looking on expectantly as Trixie chokes on her words.

“Oui”. She succeeds in stammering, her tongue becoming lazy in curving around each vowel. Katya grins excitedly back at her, and Trixie marvels at the interest she’s seemingly taking in Trixie’s life that seems impertinent, now, with the Milwaukee landscapes peeking in from the window of hers - her _fathers_ \- kitchen.

“Me too-“. Katya admits, before she’s continuing, intrigue pouring out of her being.

“-Main campus, cause you study languages, _yeah_?”. She questions. She seems certain, and aware of more than Trixie had initially given her credit for - the sitters her father hires aren’t normally the most intelligent - with her raised eyebrows and soft smile.

Trixie begins chuckling before she’s able to respond, and folds her arms on top of the breakfast bar. She rests her cheek on her shoulder, and is almost positive that the position gives her a double chin when Katya rakes her eyes across her face, and then lower, to where her sweater has gathered, bunched up between her breasts.

Half tempted to make a show of it, pull her sweater down lower, and drizzle herself in the sticky wine, Trixie giggles alongside Katya. She’s not going to do it - she’s half way to being both drunk and dozy - with Katya leaning further across the counter top so that her own breasts, braless and tank top-clad, are balanced on the edge.

“How’d you guess?”.

She’s bashful, though becomes more than self assured when Katya refills her mug for her, fills it to the brim like Trixie would have done for herself. She slides it across to Trixie with a hum, and then tops up her own cup.

Trixie mumbles a _thanks_ , and Katya’s shrugging as if she doesn’t care - Trixie guesses that maybe she doesn’t - before she’s rubbing the palm of her hand across her own cheek, hooking her ankle with Trixie’s beneath the breakfast bar and beginning to elaborate.

“I almost went there to study, too, but ended up stayin’ at home in Boston. I study sociology, and go back in the fall to start my masters”.

Katya’s words fizzle out in Trixie’s mind, cause the wires in her brain to cross to the extent that she finds her eyes doing the same, trailing across the expanse of Katya’s face. She looks earnest, and honest, and her intellect is bewildering to Trixie, who can feel goosebumps travelling from her ankle, where Katya’s skin meets hers, up to her thighs and her hips.

It’s _insane_ , somehow, and Trixie wants it to stop.

She’s far from sober, and a frown forms on her face at the situation that’s laid out in front of her. Katya doesn’t look young - Trixie’s established that from the lines around her eyes and the veins protruding out of her wrists - but she doesn’t look old, either.

Trixie thinks that she’s older than she is, possibly early twenties, and can’t quite piece together Katya’s reasonings for working here all summer, looking after _Raina_ and _Riley_ and _Dylan_ ; all whilst still being a college student herself.

“How old are you?”. She blurts, leaves Katya chuckling openly once again. She sips at her cup of wine until it’s empty, before she contemplates her answer to Trixie’s question. Unhooking her ankle from Trixie’s, she plants both of her feet back on the bottom of her own bar stool.

“Twenty four”.

Trixie nods once.

“Got it. So you’re working here over summer? Why?”.

Her words form themselves in a way that’s more blunt than Trixie intends, and she’s cursing herself internally, kicking her indignation until Katya rolls her eyes mockingly, laughs in Trixie’s general direction as she eyes the nearly empty wine bottle.

She wants to pour the rest of it into her glass immediately, but Trixie looks sorry, and _drunk_ , and Katya’s already got her answer prepared. She toys with it before she confesses, much to Trixie’s dismay, who’s began tapping her nails across the surface of the counter top impatiently.

Katya sighs silently; _amused_.

“My friend Ginger knew about it, said I should apply ‘cause it was good money so, I thought it’d be a good experience-“. She halts. “-Plus, college is kind of expensive”.

Katya’s not sure how much Trixie will understand. From what she’s gathered, Trixie’s never had to want nor graft for anything she’s been given in life, handed to her on a silver platter by one of the housekeepers or sitters. Katya doubts she’s ever skipped a meal to purchase a subway ticket home, or slept on friends and acquaintances couches because her mom didn’t have the gas to pick her up for days on end.

It’s a presumption, but she thinks that she’s right when Trixie nods, shrugs without a care.

“Makes sense-”. Trixie hiccups. “-What qualified you for the job?”.

The humorous tone has returned to Trixie’s voice, and Katya’s grateful for it when she sees Trixie visibly relax, watches her shoulders hunch and her fingers cease their tapping motion across the counter top. Katya thanks her silently, and purses her lips jokingly.

“ _Nothing_ at all”. She deadpans.

Her dry delivery causes Trixie’s eyes to widen noticeably, before her slightly crooked teeth are being framed by her plump lips in a cheek shattering grin. She laughs, cackles when her head tilts back and her eyes flutter closed unwittingly. _Yes_ , Trixie thinks. _Yes_. She feels like she’s back in Chicago, if only whilst her eyes remain locked with Katya’s.

“I’m kidding-“. Katya corrects. “-I was a camp councillor all through my teenage years, until last summer, actually. Apparently that was enough for your dad”.

Trixie snorts, and Katya mumbles her acknowledgment. She knows what Trixie means, she’s certain - Trixie’s father has been gone for a matter of hours and it already feels like he was never there in the first place - _because he’s a busy man_ , Trixie asserts.

She doesn’t believe it herself, and neither does Katya judging by the sympathetic look that sits on her face, and her content smile that’s slipping more with each passing comment.

“ _Wow_ -“. Trixie banters. “-You’re more qualified than he is”.

Katya huffs out a laugh, bemused, in spite of the perplexed emotions that Trixie’s dark sense of humour is giving her, that’s becoming more apparent as the wine settles in her stomach, infiltrates her blood stream. She can feel it coursing through her veins, into her palms which are searching for the almost empty bottle of wine, splitting what she believes will be their second to last refill between hers and Trixie’s mugs.

“So you’re back living here for the whole summer?”.

Diverting the conversation, Katya smirks up at Trixie. Her lips are cracking with the strength of the wine and the heat of the room, and she swipes her tongue across them in what Trixie seems a futile attempt at moistening them. She does it regardless, and Trixie can feel her thighs beginning to prickle with sweat against the leather of the bar stool, the humidity that surrounds them.

She lifts them up, twists on said stool, and grimaces as the sound pierces the ambience. Katya seems unbothered, and continues sipping nonchalantly at her cup whilst she waits for Trixie to form her answer.

It takes seconds, and then Trixie’s nodding.

“I am, yeah. I plan on just, relaxing for a while”.

Katya crinkles her nose, wonders how much relaxation Trixie will really be able to achieve with two twelve year olds and a sixteen year old bounding about the house, screeching into games consoles and demanding to be driven to the nearest mall and food court that’s over an hour away, she knows.

She clears her throat, and finds herself envying Trixie none the less, because Trixie’s essentially free of commitments, for the entirety of the summer, in the house that has more rooms than Katya could ever know what to do with.

Katya smiles, a mask, and sets her mug down with a clack against the counter top.

“I’m ‘kinda glad to have somebody closer to my own age around here”. Katya adds, and Trixie’s sighing dramatically - overly so - in relief. Katya’s funny, she’s established, as well as being familiar in a way that Pearl and Kim had been back in Chicago, with their easy conversations and playful quips and arguments.

“ _God_ , me too”.

Trixie feels blissfully inebriated; her fingertips are vibrating and the soles of her feet are tickled by her socks, all fresh cotton mixed with artificial polyester. She digs the toes of one foot into the bridge of the other, and laughs more openly than she has since she’d started drinking, with Katya’s eyes chained to hers.

“I already like your tastes”. Katya’s eyes twinkle as her cheeks flush scarlet, flushed with heat and alcohol.

Trixie casts her eyes scrutinisingly across Katya’s being once again, her hair that’s almost completely dry by now and her eyebrows that have tamed themselves, calmed from their once rugged appearance.  
She’s pulled the straps of her tank top back up, too, and Trixie observes where they dig into the strong, defined muscle that lays there.

“I’ll cheers to that”. Trixie smirks, as she bumps her cup against Katya’s. The porcelain clinks melodically, high pitched enough to make Trixie recoil, cause her spine to tingle in shivers.

They’re silent for numerous minutes, until Katya coughs, splits the last remaining ounces of wine between hers and Trixie’s mugs before she stands, drops the empty bottle into the recycling bin that’s situated in the corner of the room.

“I’ll see ‘ya tomorrow?”. Katya asks, and Trixie takes it as the signal that Katya’s going to bed. She mumbles a faint _see you_ , and then is proven right, when Katya nods her head, waves over her shoulder and exits the room silently.

Her legs look shaky, and Trixie feels it in her own bones as she sits at the breakfast bar for ten more minutes, drinks the remainder of the wine in her cup. She washes it clear in the sink once she’s done, and leaves it on the draining board to be cleaned further the following morning, she swears, before slugging towards her room.

When she slumps into bed, she sighs, and pulls the covers close to her chest, flashes the name Katya through her mind akin to a flashlight.

_Blink. Blink. Blink._

She’s asleep again within minutes.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She can see it in the way that Katya outstretches her arm further, hands Trixie the bottle of wine carefully, so that the glass bottle doesn’t smack down onto her thighs that pool over her shins. Her eyes narrow when Trixie wraps her fingers around the neck of it - it’s chilling to the touch and Trixie shivers, her arms budding with goose bumps - and then she’s cocking her head to one side, untucking her lip from between her teeth.
> 
> Attraction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi folks!! i wasn’t planning on posting this part yet but honestly, all of your lovely comments have really inspired me!! (plus this could quite literally be the definition of a filler chapter, very little happens and it’s more of just a bridge to the next part) 
> 
> with that said, i love a bit of character development!! 
> 
> side note: i edited this whilst day drunk and i’m not sorry 
> 
> i hope you enjoy!!<3

Trixie doesn’t see katya the next day like she told her she would.

Or the day after, _either_.

She spends the majority of her time in her room, unpacking and organising her singular suitcase to the best of her abilities, until the four walls starts to feel more like a cell than the safe haven she remembers them being.

She folds up socks into her drawers and hangs her shirts in her walk in closet along with miscellaneous dresses and the odd pair of pants that she’s brought for reasons that she doesn’t understand.

It takes her hours, to go through items that she knows she’s never going to wear again - her style has evolved, she thinks, throughout her year in college - and folds them into piles that she can donate to the nearest shelter, or Raina’s ever growing collection of everything.

She deems herself to be done when her suitcase is empty, and stood dormant in the corner of her room. She doesn’t know why, understands that she’s going to despise repacking at the end of the summer, when the universe decides to make it impossible for her to leave with the same amount of stuff that she came with.

An exasperated sigh leaves her lips, and she sinks into the chair adjacent to her dressing table.

Katya’s kept herself busy with Trixie’s siblings too, by stuffing their schedules to the brim. Trixie catches sight of the four of them - _Katya, Raina, Dylan and Riley_ \- when Katya’s bundling them into the car that her dads left for her to drive for the summer; a large jeep that accommodates all of them, even Trixie if she were to join them.

Trixie watches her drive them away happily through the glazing of her bedroom window, assumes that she has an errant of activities planned for them. Her sister looks begrudging, he face downtrodden and seemingly miserable, but Trixie doesn’t doubt that Katya makes it as bearable as she can, and knows that Raina would prefer to be with her brothers than stuck indoors in her room, despite the four year age gap.

The sight makes Trixie chuckle, and she doesn’t see Katya again until three days after their first encounter in the kitchen, when Katya arrives home late with her siblings. She gathers that they’ve been to a late evening screening of a movie, from the excited charters of her brothers and the almost empty bucket of popcorn that Raina carries in the direction of her room.

Trixie smiles at them as they hurdle past the doorway - she’s lounging on the couch in the living room - and eyes Katya whilst she looks the door to the house.

She looks smart - the word sophisticated runs through Trixie’s mind - in her checkered pants that she’s cuffed, and her black short sleeved shirt. She’s wearing the same _70’s_ style brogues that Trixie’s beginning to loathe, and has a tan, leather satchel thrown carelessly over one shoulder.

Trixie can see where it’s digging into her neck from where the collar of her shirt has slipped, and focuses her gaze on how Katya discards it in the hallway, hooks it over the bannister of the staircase.

She makes her way to the kitchen then, and Trixie relaxes back into the couch for the next handful of minutes that pass uninterestingly, until Katya’s bounding into the room, a grin on her face and a bottle of rosé wine in her hand. The grin that consumes her face appears mischievous, as does the the gleam in her eyes, and Trixie’s sitting up straighter, allowing herself to perk at the sight of Katya.

“Hey, Trixie?”.

“Hm?”. Trixie arches both eyebrows.

Katya steps closer, with her face hopeful and expectant, until she’s standing mere feet from Trixie who’s scooted her way towards the edge of the couch. Her feet are tucked underneath her thighs, between the cotton of her sleep shorts and the leather of the couch that’s making her skin tacky with sweat.

She clenches the muscles of her calves, until she’s kneeling, clutching one of the scatter cushions that litter the couch to her stomach and waist. Katya grins in response, and sits on the arm of the couch, less than a foot away from Trixie. She sits with her legs apart, far enough that Trixie’s able to see the material of her pants crinkling around the knee that’s closest to her; the way they gather in the crease of her joints.

The scent of Katya’s cologne begins hitting her nose from the close proximity - Trixie knows that she’s picked it out the men’s section the moment that she smells it - the particles of musk and sandalwood overwhelmingly enticing.

Waving the bottle in front of Trixie, Katya rests both elbows on her knees. The position means that her back is slouched, and Trixie can once again see the notches of her spine through her shirt, despite the fabric being thicker than the tank top that Trixie remembers, and black in colour compared to white.

“You’re not _tired_ , are you?”. Katya checks, digging her teeth into her bottom lip.

Trixie shakes her head briskly, mumbles _no_ , tells Katya that she’s not tired. She isn’t, not by a long shot, and hasn’t been since she’d witnessed the lights of Katya’s jeep pull up in the driveway, through the lined curtains that cover the bay window of the living room.

They’d flickered twice before the engine had cut off, and Trixie had bolted off of the couch, over to the light switch in the corner of the room in order to illuminate the space. It took her seconds, before she was crossing the room once again in order to situate herself back into the indentation her body had left on said couch.

She’d shaken her unruly hair free from the dishevelled braid as the door has hinged open, and had ran her fingers through it with the knowledge that Katya was there, metres away from her. Trixie knows that it’s laughable - she has no makeup on and she’s been in the same PJ’s for two days straight - but she’s not _stupid_.

Trixie’s always trusted her instincts more than people tell her to; she knows that the owner of the gas station a mile away is probably a good man, and that her father is too, beneath the orchestrated exterior and superficial business persona. She thinks that her college professors aren’t as mighty as they let on, with their presentations and handout sheets, and knows that being home for the summer won’t be as colourless as she initially thought, regardless of whether she wants it to be or not.

She can see it in the way that Katya outstretches her arm further, hands Trixie the bottle of wine carefully, so that the glass bottle doesn’t smack down onto her thighs that pool over her shins. Her eyes narrow when Trixie wraps her fingers around the neck of it - it’s chilling to the touch and Trixie shivers, her arms budding with goose bumps - and then she’s cocking her head to one side, untucking her lip from between her teeth.

 _Attraction_.

“Do y’wanna share it once I make sure the boys are asleep?”. Katya rasps.

Her voice cracks mid way through her sentence, and Trixie wants to sooth it for her, wrap it in honey and lemon so that she keens, thanks Trixie in embraces of wine and the opposite of sobriety. She thinks that Katya’d like it, and she’s nodding, agreeing happily.

“TV too?”. Trixie offers, pops open the screw top bottle with a flick of her wrist. Katya eyes her arm as she does so - Trixie knows that her biceps look thick in her loose, unflattering t-shirt - and stands abruptly.

Trixie untucked her legs from underneath herself, and places the frigid bottle between her crossed legs once she’s repositioned herself, trails her eyes across Katya’s staggering body as she makes a beeline for the doorway.

“Find a documentary we can pretend to watch, and I’ll be right there”.

“ _Duh_ ”.

Katya shifts further out of the room at Trixie’s confirmation, and Trixie can hear her brogues ascending the staircase before she’s able to locate the TV remote, switch the channel over to one that she knows isn’t worth watching. She settles on a rerun of a show that talks of analysing the pyramids - it’s all Egyptian and artistic, and Trixie thinks Katya will appreciate her choice - and begins sipping at the untouched bottle of wine before Katya reaches the top of the staircase.

Trixie smiles to herself, bashfully, when she hears Katya enter one of her brothers’ rooms.

Presumably Dylan.

She can tell from the lack of protesting that she’s able to hear about switching off TV’s and games consoles, phones and computers, and knows that when Katya gets to Riley’s room that it’ll be a different battle.

Trixie waits for the noise to arrive, and it doesn’t until ten or so minutes later when Trixie’s still sipping nonchalantly from the bottle, thanking the heavens that her father has hired somebody friendly this year. Somebody who’s closer to her own age, and on her wavelength - it’s the most important factor to Trixie - who’s able to get Riley to calm himself within minutes.

It astounds Trixie, because Katya’s downstairs again before the hand ticks over to the next hour on the clock, with her previous clothing having been substituted for an attire similar to Trixie’s; sleep shorts and a tank top.

She crashes on the couch next to Trixie, rearranges her limbs until she’s comfortable. She settles when she’s sat cross legged and facing the other girl, her shoulder digging into the back rest of the couch.

Her knees brush against Trixie’s outer thigh whenever she fights, as do her hands that reach out immediately, grasp ahold of the bottle of wine that Trixie’s been working her way through.

Katya’s lips press onto the glass in the same place that Trixie’s had, and she sips - or _gulps_ \- down the peach coloured liquid. The sweetness of the alcohol burns her throat as she swallows, a welcome change to the syrupy taste of blue raspberry ice from the movie theatre, and Trixie watches it bob with her head tilted back towards the ceiling.

She pulls the bottle away from her eager mouth with a pop and a sigh, one that leaves Trixie’s eyebrows knitted together and her forehead scrunched.

“Do you have any idea how energetic your brothers are?”. Katya breaks the silence that’s formed between them.

Snickering, Trixie shrugs her shoulders. She takes the bottle back from Katya, who hands it over begrudgingly. She wants to keep swallowing it down, wants the effects to kick in quicker than she feels she’s needed them to in a while, but Trixie’s pouting exaggeratedly, and Katya’s passing it over with a hint of reluctance.

“No, no idea. Brothers? _Who_?”. Trixie jokes, taking a single, large sip from the bottle before Katya’s taking it back for herself again, drinking more than Trixie has since she’d opened the bottle, sent the cap flying towards the ground.

Katya’s fingertips press against the neck of the bottle with admirable force, so much so that they turn a shade of red, and then pink, white.

She flexes her fingers, clicks her knuckles when they begin to cramp as she lifts the bottle that barely looks as if it’s been drank at all, and nudges it in Trixie’s direction once she’s done; for the time being.

“Shut up, they’re wearing me out”. Katya confesses with a groan.

“God, tell me about it. They’re my fucking _brothers_ , Katya”. Trixie snorts.

She’s teasing, jabbing at Katya mockingly, but Katya’s looking at her, bewildered, as if she’s already three sheets to the wind drunk. Trixie knows that she’s not - it’s impossible - but Trixie’s words hit her like it’s a fact that she’s just realising.

 _Brothers_.

Katya’s blinking rapidly - Trixie wants to tell her to stop, it’s a habit that she’s never understood - and then shaking her head, albeit to herself. She looks tired, more so than Trixie had days prior after her journey back from _Chicago_ to _Milwaukee_ , and Trixie knows that that’s an achievement in itself.

Trixie had been exhausted then, but Katya seems debilitated, crippled with enervation that’s drawing heavy sighs from her lungs and causing her to roll her eyes at any inconvenience.

It’s reaching a point where Trixie wants to tell her to leave. To hop on the next flight out of Milwaukee and back to Boston, away from the draining energy of her siblings and the monotony of the Midwest because Katya looks like she’s diminishing.

Merely a couple of days have passed, Trixie knows, since she’d encountered Katya in the kitchen, with her red wine and my little pony mug that had screamed invitation to Trixie’s overtired mind. It’s been a couple of days, but Trixie’s able to see clearly the toll that it’s taken on Katya’s once zealous personality, her lustful outlook.

Trixie doesn’t want that for Katya, doesn’t want it for _herself_ , but then Katya’s rolling her neck, relaxing further into the couch so that she’s able to swipe an eraser across Trixie’s thoughts.

She leans further into Trixie’s space, so that her knees are pressed firmly into Trixie’s outer thigh that’s spouting with stubbly, regrowing faint blonde hairs. She shifts yet again, and she’s able to settle the bottle in Trixie’s lap; where they’re both able to reach for it when wanted, needed.

The sight of Katya as she does so is enough to settle Trixie’s thoughts. The only lamp that’s left to light up the room beats down on Katya’s skin with a warmth that causes Trixie’s cheeks to flush scarlet. It casts shadows across her cheekbones and under her eyes, where her bare eyelashes flutter in the blue of her prominent under eye bags, and her shoulders that reflect the glow.

Trixie chuckles to herself, and marvels at how Katya’s skin has morphed from sunburn to sun kissed, because It’s been days.

“Did you do much today?”. Katya questions, unprompted.

Trixie shrugs her shoulders once again, misses Katya’s lingering gaze that lands on the jiggling swell of her breasts beneath the fabric of her t-shirt. They heave as Trixie inhales, and then as she speaks, and Katya’s biting her tongue to quell her smirk that’s threatening to form.

“I took a bath for literally two hours-“. Trixie wants to laugh at the contrasting days that herself and Katya have had.

“-and then slept all day”. She finishes.

“Sounds heavenly”.

“It was-“. Trixie confirms. “-That’s _exactly_ why you don’t sign up to be a sitter for three teenagers during summer”.

She speaks with the intent not to gloat, not to rub Katya’s face in the fact that she’s able to do nothing, essentially, for a whole summer. It’s a conscious effort that she makes - knows now after reflecting on their initial meeting that Katya’s financial situation is worlds away from her own - because she doesn’t want to offend Katya, despite the instant regret that floods her body as soon as her words pass her lips.

They’re careless, spoken from a place of privilege that Trixie knows that she has and utilises unashamedly, but Katya’s shrugging like she doesn’t care, is sipping from the wine bottle as if Trixie’s words barely entered her ears.

Trixie guesses that maybe she doesn’t care, when she’s reaching her hand out towards Trixie, fiddling with the fabric of Trixie’s t-shirt that’s wrapped around her upper arm.

Katya’s fingers brush against the underside of her bicep, and Trixie’s averting her eyes, mumbling a thanks when Katya hands the bottle back to her.

“Are you complaining?”. Katya jibes.

“ _No_ , I don’t think I am”. Trixie settles, chuckles wearily.

She knows she’s not. She’s thankful for the distraction that Katya’s providing - she _is_ the distraction, Trixie thinks - from the nameless faces that Trixie’s able to spot in family photos that are littered on walls throughout the house, the absence of anybody that she really knows with the exception of her siblings.

It’s jarring, but Trixie thinks that it’s true from the way that Katya’s still looking at her, toying with the sleeve of her shirt for another fleeting moment before she drops her hand, settles them back in her own lap.

“So French, hm? What made you wanna study it?”. Katya muses.

It’s a change of subject that Trixie welcomes, but one that shocks her none the less. Her eyes are widening with the notion that she’s unprepared - she doesn’t know, it’s not a question that she’s had to answer since she started college - and her throat swallows around the last remaining droplets of wine in her mouth.

She feels like she’s in the kitchen again, on her first night after returning home, as she drops the bottle haphazardly back into Katya’s lap. It’s still over half full, and Katya has visions of it spilling whilst Trixie contemplates her answer, even as it inevitably doesn’t.

Katya worries her bottom lip between her teeth as Trixie moves to rest her cheek on the back rest of the couch. It’s a question that’s been nagging at her mind since a number of days prior, following her first conversation with Trixie that had left her dazed and confused, intrigued and drunk.

 _French_.

It doesn’t seem to fit, and Katya can’t work it out, wants to know more about Trixie, who’s sitting with her on her fathers couch at ten in the night on a Wednesday, with an irrelevant documentary sounding up the room, guzzling wine like it’s fruit juice.

“I guess I was always just good at it in school-“. Trixie grumbles.

She’s not interested in talking about herself, wants to revel in the buzz that’s beginning to fill her veins and Katya, whose words are shots of adrenaline to her bloodstream.

“-I speak Spanish too, but there’s something about French that just, had me. It’s so much _more_ than English”.

Trixie thinks that her answer is satisfactory at best, when she stutters it out through hiccups and nonchalant facial expressions, but Katya’s nodding regardless, consuming Trixie’s words gleefully. She digs her short fingernails into her own thighs, and keeps her eyes trained on how the position of Trixie’s face against the couch causes her cheek to squish, the corner of her mouth to be artificially upturned.

“The _language of love_ , that’s what they call it, right?”.

Katya keeps her tone light. She’s joking and Trixie’s aware of it, from the smirk that paints itself across her face and her shoulders that slump when she chuckles brazenly.

“I guess-“. Trixie huffs out a laugh.

“-What about you, huh? Do you speak any other languages?”. She finishes, diverts the attention away from herself.

She doesn’t want to have to listen to the sound of her own voice anymore - it’s beginning to grate on her nerves - instead wants to be able to allow her eyes to flutter closed, with the crackling sound of Katya’s voice blanketing her eardrums. Katya’s perking though, nodding her head instantly without hesitation, and Trixie wills her mind to switch off by the mains as she begins to speak, proceeds with telling Trixie more more more.

“Well, you know I speak French, but apart from that I only really know Russian and a ‘lil German from high school”.

 _Russian_. Trixie catches her own eyes squinting in confusion. She knows that it’s not a common language in the states, especially over on the east coast where Katya’s told her she’s from, in Boston, Massachusetts. It causes her to lift her cheek from the back of the couch, cock her head questioningly in Katya’s direction.

“Russian? How do you know Russian?”.

“I am Russian”.

“What?”.

“ _Yeah_ ”.

Trixie swallows, taps her nails against the glass of the bottle, the label that’s beginning to peel at the edges from the condensation thats formed. She picks at it, balls up the soggy paper between her thumb and forefinger, flicks it across the room with a giggle.

She’s drunk, and she knows she is. Can tell from how her eyes are watering and blurring, so that she isn’t able to make out all of Katya’s features that are upturning, laughing along with her. She lifts a hand, prods her finger to the section of her own neck where she presumes her voice box is, circles the spot until Katya notices.

“But you don’t have an accent?”. Trixie quizzes, handing the bottle back to Katya. Katya accepts it with unrestrained delight, takes a single sip before she licks at her lips, nods at Trixie.

“I’ve lived here since I was born, s’why. My parents moved here after the Soviet Union collapsed so I normally just say I’m from Boston and get on with it”.

“ _Oh_ ”.

Trixie feels stupid.

She tells herself that she’s had too much wine in such a short space of time, knows that she’s not thinking to the best of her abilities when Katya rolls her eyes - Trixie thinks she does it with the best of intentions - and laughs openly.

Trixie can smell the wine on her breath from how close they are, and kicks herself, because not everybody has accents, she knows. She’s lived in Milwaukee all of her life and sounds like she’s been living out of state for most of it, the only evidence of her country background coming in twangs and local dialect.

It _should_ have been obvious, because her fathers from California, too, originally, despite speaking as if he’s crawled from the back swamps of Florida, where he lived for no more than a chunk of years in his twenties.

It _should_ have been, Trixie tells herself, even though it wasn’t. She sighs, curses herself out in her mind.

Katya continues sipping at the bottle - it’s more than half empty by this point - as a period of silence settles between them. It’s relatively comfortable, and only lasts a handful of minutes as they pass the bottle back and forth between them, until Trixie’s phones lighting up on the coffee table; three times consecutively.

A lopsided smirk quirks at the corner of Katya’s mouth as she eyes said phone from where it’s sat, now securely in the palm of Trixie’s hand.

Trixie can tell that she’s more than tipsy - is probably as drunk as Trixie feels - and is overconfident in her alcohol induced state. She is too, and clenches her jaw as she drops her phone to the space on the couch between them, allows Katya to sneak less than secretive glances towards the locked screen.

“ _Dan_?-“. Katya pauses to grimace. “-Is that your boyfriend?”.

It’s a thought that doesn’t sit well with her, despite the fact that she’s confident that Trixie likes women, and not men, from her nails that are kept short and manicured, the rainbow anklet looped around her right foot and the picture of _Dolly_ that she has set as her home screen on her phone.

It’s in everything about Trixie, if she’s honest with herself, and she’s almost certain, when Trixie’s eyes are already boggling, and she’s shaking her head vigorously.

“God, no-”. Trixie smacks her lips together in a raucous giggle. “-He’s my hair stylist, and just happens to have a husband”.

Katya hums in understanding at Trixie’s words, though doesn’t succeed in clouding the surprise that initially crosses her face. She’s never associated fluid sexuality with the depths of Wisconsin, the rural states in general, but Trixie talks with both conviction and nonchalance about _husbands_.

“Gays? In rural Wisconsin?”. It’s baffling, and Katya knows that she’s stereotyping from the dry chuckle that Trixie exhales, pushes out of her lungs.

“Yeah, it’s totally the worst-“. Trixie halts.

“-You’ll be shocked at how many of us there are, just constantly defying _Jesus’ plans_ ”. She continues, untucking her legs from underneath herself. They’re cramping up, aching to the extent that she whimpers in distain, outstretches them across Katya’s lap as she takes back the bottle.

It’s reached room temperature quickly, and is warm in her hand, as are Katya’s thighs beneath her own; the opposite of cold.

She shivers regardless.

“Do you defy _Jesus’ plans_ often?”. Katya tries tentatively. She’s taken to sweeping one hand up and down the length of Trixie’s shin, the other drumming an ill conceived rhythm against the cellulite of her thigh that’s soft, supple, soft, supple.

Trixie locks her eyes with Katya’s, feels them cross when Katya leans in noticeably closer, her breath hot on Trixie’s flushed cheek. It has Trixie going wild - she’s more drunk than she’s been since what she thinks must have been her eighteenth birthday - because Katya’s alluring, teasing, and Trixie likes it more than she knows she should.

“I’m letting you hit on me, aren’t I?”.

Trixie hates her choice of words immediately. They’re not accurate and are far from the truth that’s pertinent, obvious to the eyes of relatives that are staring her down, from their position in photographs lining the mantle atop the old, stone fireplace.

She’s not _letting_ Katya hit on her; there’s reciprocation.

“Oh, you are?”.

“Don’t play dumb”.

“I would never, I like to treat a lady first”.

Merely shrugging, Trixie swigs from the rapidly emptying bottle, drains it down to below the bottom of the label. She can see Katya’s eyes flashing with concern again, much like they had nights previously, but Trixie’s screaming internally once again, because she can hold her alcohol.

“Is that part of your butch chivalry?”.

“Of course”.

Trixie knows that she needs to slow down, however, though she doesn’t want to. She’s balancing on a high beam, harnessed in by Katya’s company and the warmth of the room that has her beginning to sweat, her forehead budding with beads of it. It’s intoxicating, and she wants to go back in time, curse her past self for ever thinking that coming home for the summer would be anything but great, with the freedom to roam the entirety of the house, the idilic surroundings and _Katya_.

“You say you study sociology? Damn, I thought that was all about dismantling stereotypes but here you are, well on your way to becoming a raging diesel dyke”.

Trixie’s words are sharp, and joking, and they cause Katya’s arms to flail exuberantly, her eyes scrunching in a cackle.

“Carry on insulting me and I’m taking the wine”. She banters in return, slips the bottle from Trixie’s grasp and tucks it beneath her free arm.

“You wouldn’t dare”. Trixie narrows her eyes.

“Maybe not”.

_Katya wouldn’t._

*****

The bottle of wine sits empty on the coffee table a little over half an hour later.

Trixie’s drunk, maybe she’s wasted, and Katya is too, Trixie thinks, from how she stumbles up and off of the couch to switch the TV off, along with the lamp still lit in the corner.

It has Trixie laughing freely, and Katya barks along with her, until she’s standing in front of Trixie once again, who’s leaning clumsily against the arm of said couch, her legs crossed at the ankles. She stands straighter when Katya’s directly in front of her - it means she’s an inch or two taller - and stares triumphantly down towards her.

“Trixie, Trix, _Trixie_ -“. Katya drawls.

Trixie giggles, nods her head once.

“-Come to the lake with us tomorrow? I’m taking your brothers and sister. Please come, I’ll bring ice creams! All of ‘em, all of the flavours”.

Trixie can already taste the vanilla on the tip of her tongue, and she’s grinning _yes_ , allowing Katya to pull her into an embrace that hurts the plane of her chest, crushes her waist, her hips and her back.

It tickles unexplainably, and Katya pulls away before Trixie wants her to, is breathing a polite _goodnight_ that sends Trixie’s mind into a white wash of strawberry and chocolate and mint.

It’s tantalising, but then Katya’s gone again, is marching up the stairs on unsteady legs towards the guest room.

“Be ready by ten!”.

Trixie doesn’t have time to reply.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Here”. Katya offers.
> 
> Her hands begin wringing the water from Trixie’s hair with ease, until it’s stopped dripping down her back and she’s able to braid it securely. She ties it off with an elastic that she has on her wrist along with a craft bracelet or two - Trixie doesn’t understand why when her hair is as short as it is - and drapes the length of the braid around Trixie’s shoulder.
> 
> “Thanks”. Trixie all but whispers, allows Katya’s hand to linger against her skin that’s burning, overheating, burning.
> 
> “No problem”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is back again!! i can’t belive this fic is almost half way through?? it’s wild, but i’m so grateful to everybody who reads/leave such amazing comments! 
> 
> i love you all and hope you like this part! (it’s where things start to pick up,, so)
> 
> let me know what you think <3

The following morning, nature forces Trixie awake before her alarm sounds.

Outside her bedroom window, she can both see and hear the birds tweeting, from where she’s forgotten to close the draping curtains. They hop skittishly across the branches of trees, take off with chirps that pierce her eardrums irritatingly.

She wants them to stop the moment that they begin, longs for the thump that’s become apparent in her temples and the front of her skull to vanish like the strobes of light that disappear and then reappear, from behind the horizontal bars of her blinds.

They don’t, no matter how much she begs silently, and she’s left with a headache that refuses to cease, along with the leftovers of the wine from the night before still sloshing in her blood, dazing her vision. It draws a groan from her lips, but then she’s sitting up against the headboard of her bed, pulling her thin sheet tighter against her body.

Trixie wants to be sick.

The clock that sits on her bedside table tells her that it’s too early; it’s not even eight in the morning and it feels more like spring than the height of summer, with the pale skies outside and how she can feel the goosebumps on her legs beneath the blanket.

She knows that she’s merely wearing a pair of old boxer briefs, and curses herself for it when she’s swinging her legs over the edge of her bed - she’s reiterating to herself that she has less than two hours to quaff herself into something resembling presentable - and stumbling across the room towards her bathroom.

It takes her longer than she cares to admit - her room is large but not that large - with the realisation that she’d agreed to join Raina and Riley and Dylan and _Katya_ at the lake prickling at her mind. It causes the pace of her legs to slow, so that she’s tiptoeing across hard wooden floorboards and fluffy rugs at a speed which she deems ridiculous; it’ll never lead to things getting done.

Trixie still wants to be sick.

She drops the sheet that she’s dragged with her from the bed onto the corner of her bathroom floor, shivers as she stands in just her underwear. They’re a shade of navy that makes her skin appear paler than she knows it is, though she doesn’t care for the colour when she’s tossing them into her laundry basket amidst towels and shirts that she’s still neglected to wash.

The tiles of her bathroom floor are even colder than she’d predicted. They leave her with risen hairs on the back of her neck and purple toes that turn fuchsia and then pink as soon as she steps into her shower, turns on the water with practiced ease.

Her skin is bombarded with frigid bullets initially, though they warm within seconds so that they’re steaming up the already frosted glass, causing the vapours to clear Trixie’s blocked, aching sinuses.

She sniffs gratefully, allows the few remaining dregs of her hangover to be washed away with the lavender shower gel that she lathers across her body. It drips away with the water, down her stomach and then her thighs, and Trixie’s left with her head tilted back, the flow of the shower head pounding at her chest.

Relaxing her shoulders and craning her neck further, she’s careful not to get her hair wet. It’s piled high on top of her head, secured with a scrunchie that’s losing its elasticity and fraying at the edges. Trixie knows that she’s owned it for longer than she should have owned a hair tie - possibly since middle school - and she swears that she’ll throw it out as soon as the steps out of the shower, pulls it free from her hair that’s bound to be left wavy, unruly.

Trixie no longer wants to be sick.

Her body is calm, perfectly zen as she reaches for the razor that she’s placed in her bottle holder in order to shave her legs, underarms, bikini line.

She hasn’t done so in too long, she knows, by her standards, and begins gliding the razor smoothly up and down the lengths of her legs, seamlessly across her underarms and begrudgingly across her bikini line.

It’s not a task that she enjoys - she’d never shave again if it was down to her - though knows that the bikini that she’s planning on wearing under her clothes to the lake requires it; it’s white and revealing and Trixie knows that it’s beyond risky.

She kicks herself for only packing the one, flimsy item in her suitcase, though kicks herself harder for agreeing to join Katya without thought, contemplation. It had been a brash, rushed decision, fuelled by rosé and delirium and the last hours of a _god awful_ Wednesday night.

Trixie wants to be mad.

She wants to rip out strands of her own hair that weave themselves between her fingertips as she pushed them away from her face, back up into the bun that they’ve fallen out of. She wants to scratch her freshly clean shaven skin raw with her nails, that are short and shaped, as she reaches to detach the shower head in order to give her body a once over.

Trixie wants to be _mad_ , but she finds herself unable.

Flickers of Katya’s drunken smile run on a loop in her mind as she brings the source of water down from her neck to her clavicles, as do her giggles - they echo in Trixie’s ears - when she moves the shower head _lower lower lower_.

The water pelts against her sternum, and then outwards to her breasts and her nipples that harden with the force, the pressure that each spray exerts on her. She catches herself whimpering, almost mute, and leans her back against the tiled wall of the shower.

It’s heated up since she’d started showering, though not to the extent that it’s comfortable enough for her to rest on without flinching, her spine arching reflexively off of the porcelain.

Her eyes flutter closed momentarily at the feeling, and she allows her thoughts that are building to spill freely, overflow in mewls that are hidden by the noise of the water falling to the floor and her hand that grasps at her breasts, the swell of her stomach, her hips.

Trixie knows that she’s wound up tight; she hasn’t gotten off in what she thinks must be close to a week - it hasn’t been a priority with travelling back home, submersing herself back into a temporary state of limbo - and its driving her _insane_.

She can’t open her eyes, or close them either, without envisioning Katya, grinning above her, touching her with her hands and fingers that are strong, nimble, capable. She’s unable to tune her ears into her surroundings, too, because Katya’s voice is in the flow of the water and the chirps of the birds outside, the sound her skin makes against the tiles and how she exhales openly into the shower cubicle.

A shiver wracks the entirety of her body.

It’s how Trixie’s already certain that she’s not going to make it through the day; having to spend time with Katya and her siblings simultaneously. She knows that Katya’s going to be there, all around her, with her toned stomach rippling under her swimsuit - Trixie already has bets on her wearing a one piece - and she’s positive that it’s going to leave grovelling on her knees.

She guesses she doesn’t mind, when she presses the shower head to the juncture between her legs, feels the jets of water caressing her clit that’s throbbing with sensitivity. It causes her legs to straighten and her back to arch further off of the wall, makes her shoulders slump and her arms press her breasts upwards and together, as she tucks her chin into them.

It’s too much, too intense, too quickly, and she’s _coming_ , Katya’s name threatening to launch itself off of the tip of her tongue that’s curling against her cheek, her teeth that are digging unwittingly into her bottom lip.

They hurt, though so does her orgasm that cuts through her body, titillates on the cusp between what Trixie does and doesn’t quantify as pleasurable. She thinks it’s somewhere in the middle, between both sides of the seesaw, from the aftershocks that coarse up her spine and into her neck as she retracts the shower head, hooks it back into its original spot.

She’s left standing dumbly in the cubicle that’s rapidly cooling, wiping her still wet hands across her face in a failed attempt to brush away Katya, as she blinks her eyelids to lessen the film that’s formed across her pupils.

It takes her longer than she’s aware of, to hitch open the door to the shower and wrap herself in a pillowy towel, more time than she’d unofficially allocated herself to shower, shave, moisturise her drying arms and legs.

The clock on her bed side table reads nine when she pads back into the bedroom, her mind still hazy and unfocused. She knows still has an hour to gather herself - throw on her bikini and a cover up that she’s pulled from the depths of her closet - so perches on the chair at her dressing table to calm herself.

Her cheeks are flushed when she glances in the mirror directly in front of her, puffy from the heat of the shower and the blood that’s rushed to her head. She can see where she’s bitten at her lips, too, they’re chapped and red, swollen and sore, and she’s reaching for her chapstick that she keeps stores in one of her draws.

It helps a little, though not enough, and she’s kicking herself for ever speaking to Katya, allowing Katya into her mind; fucking herself to the thought of Katya. It causes her to groan audibly, as she tugs the scrunchie free from her hair, allows the tangled strands to swallow her from her chin to her chest.

_Trixie’s back to wanting to be sick once again._

*****

It’s already five minutes past ten when Trixie emerges from her room.

She’s knows that she’s running late - Katya had told her to be _ready by ten_ \- by the time that she’s clothed her body in the aforementioned white bikini, and her years old coverup that’s all peach and lace and _feminine_ ; Trixie hates it.

The moment that it’s on she wants to rip it off of her body, hide it back in the pits of her closet for another five or so years so that she’s able to remain blind to it. It’s short, doesn’t even come down to mid thigh, and it itches the skin of her stomach and back that she’s plastered in moisturiser and sun screen because she’s already aware that it’s going to be a scorchingly warm day.

She thinks it’ll reach the hundreds by noon if the heat continues pouring from the sun, toasting the ground like it has been since it rose from east, peaked from behind the clouds and through the blinds of Trixie’s bedroom.

It’s bound to happen. Her phone tells her it’s already ninety five at the lake that’s half an hours drive away, though she doesn’t mind when she thinks of the tanning opportunities and the cool water of said lake that she knows is pure enough to swim in if she gets too hot, beyond sweaty and burnt.

The thought draws a distracted sigh from her lips as she navigates her way down the hallway, towards and down the staircase to the foyer, sans the headache and nausea that she’s more than glad have vanished.

Her brothers are there, ready to leave and jump into the jeep that they’ll be taking, dressed in their board shorts and clashing camouflage t-shirts that Trixie loathes; she swears she’ll never be caught dead in one of them. Raina’s there also, sitting impatiently on the bottom step of the staircase, tapping the base of her flip flops against the solid floor.

She taps Trixie’s leg as the elder bypasses her, and Trixie’s left rolling her eyes exasperatedly, knowing that complaints are about to be shot her way, whether she wants to hear them or not. She braces herself, stands awkwardly up against the banister because there doesn’t seem to be any sign of Katya, yet, until there is; _clearly_.

Trixie’s eyes hone in on her as she springs from the kitchen, her arms ladened with a cooler that Trixie assumes holds snacks and ice cream and drinks, probably. She carries it with ease, sets it down on the floor when she reaches the foyer, grins wildly at everybody that’s congregated.

“We started to think you weren’t coming”. Katya jibes, the instant her eyes lock with Trixie’s.

Trixie’s baffled, taken aback, because she expected the words to come from Raina, like they normally do, but Katya’s laughing jokingly at her, shaking her head mockingly so that Trixie’s aware that her words hold no malice.

Katya straightens her back, hooks her thumbs into the belt loops of her shorts - they’re a dark denim and show more leg than Trixie expected them to - as she nods towards the front door that’s cracked open, ventilating the air conditioned space.  
  
“Better late than never, _right_? That’s what they say-“. Katya adds.

“-The cars already started”. She finishes, picks the cooler back up in order to deposit it in the trunk of the car. Stalking out of the door, Trixie watches Katya’s ankles twist in her sneakers, and follows her dully out to the driveway.

Her siblings follow her wordlessly, hop one by one into the back seats of the car as Katya wrenches open the trunk, sets the cooler in the corner so that she’s certain it’s not going to move, batter the walls of the car as she drives.

Trixie knows that the roads are rugged, and admires Katya’s forward thinking as she places herself in the passenger seat. She pulls her coverup over as much of her thighs as she can so that they don’t stick to the leather of the seats, begin sticking irritatingly, and buckles her seat belt with ease.

She watches her brothers and sister do so too through the rear view mirror, and relaxes to the best of her abilities in her seat whilst Katya closes the trunk, makes her way back up the driveway in order to lock the doors.

“I can’t believe you’re _actually_ coming with us”. Raina interrupts Trixie’s observations.

She leans between both of the front seat, her elbows resting on her knees as she eyes Trixie suspiciously. Her pupils are wide, blown out in a way that Trixie knows means mischief, trouble.

The grin that takes over her face is equally as accusatory, and Trixie finds herself huffing out a dry chuckle as Raina giggles knowingly, casts her gaze between Trixie, who’s slouching in her seat and tapping her nails across her thigh distractedly, and Katya, who’s pulling the front door to the house closed.

“Shut up, Katya asked me to”.

“Katya _asked_ you?”. Raina’s eyebrows almost reach her hairline in bewilderment, and Trixie wants to tell her that the expression will give her wrinkles by the time she’s twenty, but she’s still grinning, and Trixie knows that Raina’s mind has clicked.

“Oh my god-“. Trixie groans. “-It’s not like that. She’s cool and we’re _friends_ ”.

She denies it regardless, because Trixie still stands by the fact that she’s not entirely stupid, and neither are Dylan and Riley who are sat in the back seats too, with their ears wide open. They don’t need to know, and neither does Raina, really, Trixie decides as she crosses her arms over her chest defensively.

“She’s also _so_ your type”. Raina points out, before she’s lodging herself back into her seat, between Dylan and Riley in order to avoid the half hearted shove that Trixie throws her way.

“I will throw you out of this car once we’re on the highway”. Trixie bites.

Raina simply scoffs.

“Yeah, _sure_ ”.

*****

When they arrive, Trixie’s brothers are diving into the lake, splashing in their trunks before Trixie finds herself able to blink.

Raina’s made herself scarce too, has trekked to the other side of the lake to bask in the solitude that the light canopy of trees there provides. The sun still leaks through them, allows her skin to catch the colour that it desires from where she’s reclined on a beach towel, with her earphones blasting music into her ears from her phone.

Trixie’s proud of her, she _thinks_.

She’s sixteen, and has matured more than Trixie had imagined she would in the year that she’d been gone for college. Trixie’s watched her grow through video calls and text messages that never gave an accurate perspective with their blurry, pixelated screens and overly abbreviated words.

Trixie sees a lot of herself in Raina. Their eyes dig to the same depths, even as their hair differs greatly. Trixie’s blonde, naturally - she’s never understood how when she knows she’s half native - compared to Raina, all rich and brunette to the extent that Trixie finds herself envying her.

Her manners are good, if still a little childish, though Trixie’s thankful for the conversations that they’re able to have now that they couldn’t before; honest and open and real.

Trixie’s proud of her, she _knows_.

She sighs, turns her attention towards Katya who she’s been left sat with, on the bank of the lake that’s layered with sprigs of grass, daisies and dandelions. Trixie picks at the ones that overlap the towel that she’s sprawled across, crinkles them up between her fingers and the palm of her hand that’s left with faint indentations of her nails.

The petals cascade across the expanse of her stomach when she releases them, stretches out the muscles in her fingertips that are beginning to cramp.

She’s already stripped down to her bikini - she’s not going to waste the rays of run that are hitting her directly, already heating up her skin - and folds her arms behind her head as she continues to focus on Katya.

 _Katya_.

She’s shuffling through the cooler that she’s lugged out of the trunk of the car, searching for the orange popsicle that Riley’s asking for from the edge of the lake, his hair slicked back with the fresh water.

His chest is as red as his cheeks, though Trixie doesn’t have time to dwell on her overly energetic brother, when Katya’s tossing him the popsicle, still in the wrapper, and he’s thanking her with a nod, swimming back to Dylan on the other side of the lake with his popsicle in hand.

Katya chuckles to herself, folds her body down onto her towel that she has laid out next to Trixie’s. She’s beginning to sweat with the heat - Trixie can see it in the beads that are gathering at her temples, causing the longer strands of her hair to stick to her forehead aggravatingly - and is kicking off her sneakers with ease.

She’s left barefooted, the blades of grass tickling her toes that are bare, free from any nail polish unlike Trixie’s, that are mauve and glossy. She’s still clothed, too, in her shorts and t-shirt that’s grey, darkening with sweat patches.

Trixie’s not surprised.

The temperature has reached the hundreds, just like she thought it would, and she’s almost overheating in just her bikini that may as well be non existent; it barely covers her breasts when she lays out flat on her back, her arms tucked beneath her head.

It’s no wonder that Katya’s melting, Trixie notes, with her heavy clothing and swimsuit that she’s presumably wearing underneath of it all. It has her wanting to peel them away for her - heaven knows she needs it - and convince her to lay down next to Trixie, shoulder to shoulder.

“Not ‘gonna tan?”. Trixie settles for.

“Want to see me naked that badly, Trixie?”. Katya’s smirk illuminates her face, encompasses her features that are still beaming, radiating with a glow that only comes during the blistering summer months.

She kneels regardless, brushes her hair away from her face with both hands to Trixie struggles to see, squinting against the sun. She wonders briefly is Raina’s brought a spare part of sunglasses, though erases the thought from mind when Katya’s snickering, planting her hands on her thighs.

“Who said anything about naked?”. Trixie taunts in return.

Katya curses herself internally - Trixie’s going to think that she’s denser than wood - and begins removing both articles of clothing before Trixie can comment further.

She’s left in a black one piece that Trixie could have predicted she was wearing before her eyes even landed on it, and reclines on the towel so that her body is where Trixie’s wanted it since they’d arrived; next to hers, _shoulder to shoulder._

Trixie knows that Katya’s comfortable in her body. It’s in her walk and how she handles herself, how she bends her legs at the knees so that her feet land on the cotton of the towel and not the earth of the grass. It shows in how she turns her head towards Trixie, also, her lips curving upwards into a smile that screams challenge.

“Never heard of a bikini?”. Trixie banters, allows Katya’s smug expression to grow.

“Never heard of shutting the fuck up?”.

With her mouth agape, Trixie shakes her head, turns rapidly so that she’s laying on her stomach, her head buried in the crevice of her folded arms.

“ _No_ , actually”. She responds, leaves Katya staring blankly at the back of her head. She laughs, in spite of Trixie’s answer, and copies the girls movements so that she too is situated comfortably on her stomach, the side of her body brushing up against Trixie’s.

Trixie can’t believe her audacity momentarily, and lifts her head, only to see that Katya has her gaze trained on a rogue daisy that’s the opposite side to Trixie. Everything’s hot, heavy, and Trixie’s lowering her head to her arms once again, digging her teeth into the side of her cheek.

She wants the lake to drown her.

*****

Trixie drifts off to sleep, and wakes up laying on her back to the sight of Katya staring at her from above.

Her hair is wet, slicked back and still dripping with water from the lake, down onto Trixie’s chest. It pools in the dip of her neck, and Trixie’s brushing it away with lazy fingers and a lazier simper as Katya’s fingers meet her own with a touch that’s soft, gentle.

They’re pruning from the water that Trixie knows she’s been submerged in, and are curling around Trixie wrist so that she’s able to pull her up from her position on the ground, until she’s eye level with Katya. Her face is as wet as the rest of her body, and Trixie’s body is overheating the instant that she runs her tongue across her top lip, gets rid of the sweat that’s gathering there.

It’s why when Katya asks her to swim she’s standing quickly, disconnecting her hands from Katya’s and walking off of the bank, into the clear lake that envelopes her legs, then her waist and her chest.

“It’s not even cold!”. Trixie whines.

It’s far from it; she thinks it must be as warm as the shower she took the morning prior, with the way that it doesn’t cause goosebumps to arise on her skin or make the veins in her arms and breasts more prominent.

She’s still flushed red, and submerges her whole body under the water, dunks her head so that her hair is drenched, blanketed across her shoulders in endless tresses. She wipes her face with the backs of her hands in a futile attempt at cooling herself off, spits out droplets of water from between her lips.

Her eyes open wide also. The water doesn’t bother them but the sight of Katya does, as she swims up besides Trixie, looking blissfully at home in her surroundings.

“Yeah, sorry about that-“. Katya laughs. “-It’s the middle of summer!”.

She plants her feet securely on the bottom rocks of the lake so that she’s facing Trixie, acknowledges the fact that she has to cast her gaze upwards in order to make eye contact with the taller girl.

“Why does the universe just want me to suffer? Huh? Tell me Katya I need to know”. Trixie drones.

Her voice is high and needy, and matches the pout that’s settled on her face. The hoods of her eyes have sunken, akin to the corners of her lips that she’s downturned. They emphasise the dimples of her cheeks - one is noticeably deeper than the other - as well the faint crinkles between both of her sculpted eyebrows.

She has Katya chuckling brazenly at her, but then she’s leaning further into Trixie’s space, peeling Trixie’s hands away from her hair that she’s tried and failed to brush out of her way.

“Here”. Katya offers.

Her hands begin wringing the water from Trixie’s hair with ease, until it’s stopped dripping down her back and she’s able to braid it securely. She ties it off with an elastic that she has on her wrist along with a craft bracelet or two - Trixie doesn’t understand why when her hair is as short as it is - and drapes the length of the braid around Trixie’s shoulder.

“Thanks”. Trixie all but whispers, allows Katya’s hand to linger against her skin that’s burning, overheating, _burning_.

“No problem”.

Katya’s eyes bounce between Trixie’s chest that’s heaving, and her sparkling orbs, along with her lips and her own fingertips that are digging into the soft skin of Trixie’s shoulder. She taps her short nails, feels Trixie’s collar bones shunting beneath them as she shifts, bumps her hip with Katya’s beneath the water.

The action doesn’t send Katya toppling like she thought it would; Katya’s strong, and has the muscles in her legs holding her upright, unfaltering against Trixie’s body that’s so much more enticing than her own, she thinks, with its curves and soft cellulite that she knows she wants to sink her teeth into.

Trixie can feel the tension that’s reverberating between them, the energy that Katya’s being spews out because it has enough to spare. She wants to bathe in it, in Katya’s eyes that look more green in the natural light than they did in the artificial light of the kitchen or the living room.

She wants Katya, she’s come to accept, needs Katya’s fingers to keep touching her, and for them to travel _lower lower lower_ and -

“Make out!”.

Raina’s voice has Trixie jumping, from where she’s reclined on her elbows on the other side of the lake. Trixie’s hands are trembling as much as her legs are, but Katya looks calm, collected, and is smiling reassuringly up at Trixie when the younger girls jaw drops, retaliation sprinting out of her mouth and towards her sister.

“Shut up, brat!”. Trixie yells.

Her words are hoarse. They scratch at her throat uncomfortably until she swallows harshly, with Katya’s eyes not daring to leave hers. She swallows once again, focuses on the feeling of Katya’s hand that’s still sat on her shoulder, rubbing soothingly.

“Your sister has good ideas”. Katya husks once Trixie settles.

She squeezes at Trixie’s hand as she pulls away, and Trixie’s left standing in the centre of the lake - without Katya and with a stirring in her gut - as Katya swims to the other side, joins Dylan and Riley in splashing water back and forth at one and other.

Trixie groans, and dips her head back under the water that fills her ears and clouds her vision. It’s still as warm as it was minutes prior, and doesn’t quell the throb that’s travelling from between her legs, up through her chest and to her heart that’s beating out of her body.

_She thinks she still might be sick._


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trixie: This is officially crisis mode
> 
> Trixie: And I’m not sure if I’m going to make it
> 
> Trixie: tell Kim she can have my wardrobe if I don’t
> 
> Trixie: But I think I’m in love
> 
> Trixie: Wait that’s an exaggeration
> 
> Trixie: Pearl help

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we’re back again!! and now officially half way through 
> 
> is this the chapter you’ve been waiting for? probably not, but i’m super happy with how this one came out and i hope you like it too! 
> 
> again, thank you guys so so much for all of your positive feedback and love on this, it truly means the world <3

For the remainder of their time at the lake, Trixie is locked in a stupor.

Her mind reels, with chugging trains of thought crashing into one and other on the tracks of her mind, and bucking, destructing themselves. It hurts, and she closes her eyes once she’s back laying down on the towel that’s hot, smouldering against her back that’s reached the uncomfortable stage of sun kissed.

She knows that her shoulders will be burnt for days on end, and that she’s going to have to slather them with aftersun lotion, but doesn’t pay the fact an ounce more of attention than a simple acknowledgement, because she’s confused; flustered beyond reason.

It’s not a feeling that’s struck Trixie in a while - she prides herself on her decidedly stoic response towards the affection that comes with attraction - and she’s left navigating the far corners of her soul in search of an explanation that makes sense to her, logically.

She searches tirelessly as her eyes stare directly upwards, towards the leaves of the trees above her that are at a standstill with the lack of breeze, and the sun that peaks through them just to blind her. It leaves her with green dots in her vision, and when she lowers them again, to glance around at her siblings and Katya, she regrets her decision instantaneously.

The smudges don’t allow her to see clearly. They disrupt her view of Raina, who hasn’t budged from her spot where she’s been catching some sun for hours, much like Dylan and Riley who are still splashing each other joyously.

Trixie doesn’t know how they have the energy, even if they’re merely a youthful twelve years old and high on the sugar rush of ice creams and popsicles. They have Trixie feeling ancient - she knows it’s a stupid thought when she reminds herself that she’s only seven years older than them - before she’s diverting her focus once again, zoning in on Katya.

Katya, who’s the reason, Trixie knows, behind the ache that’s sitting in her chest and the throb that’s only just subsiding between her legs. She’s why Trixie feels like she’s ageing a decade a day, when she’s not able to touch Katya like she wants, kiss her and hold her like she needs to.

Trixie wishes that she wasn’t, but she is, and Trixie’s left silently boiling away when Katya returns to sit next to until they leave, pack themselves back into the jeep that Katya’s parked strategically on a side dirt road.

She doesn’t utter a word throughout, and Trixie’s grateful. She’s thankful for the reassuring smile that Katya throws her way too, when they’re driving back down the Northwood lanes towards home, with her siblings in the back seats and the early evening sun blasting through the windscreen.

Trixie’s more relaxed in the warm pink light than she thought she would be, and she calms further when Katya turns on the radio, tunes it in to the one station that they’re able to pick up in the middle of nowhere.

 _Hand in my pocket_ by Alanis Morissette begins playing, and Trixie listens as the woman’s voice tells her that _everything’s going to be fine_ , that it will be _quiet alright_ ; Trixie thinks that it might be when Katya lifts her hand towards Trixie, just as the voice sings _giving out high fives._

Her actions have Trixie giggling openly, her posture slumping and her body sagging deeper into the curve of the car seat. She presses her palm to Katya’s, squeezes once before she lets go, allows Katya to change down a gear.

They’re approaching the final road to the house. Trixie can tell from elms that line the roadsides and the potholes that disappear when they reach the fresh tarmac that her father had had laid a number of years prior; for his own convenience.

The house is situated far enough away from everybody else’s that said road serves only those who travel to Mattel’s house and back, and Trixie’s momentarily thankful for it when it allows the jeep to glide smoothly into the driveway, even if she’s beginning to think it was more than a significant waste of money.

It’s stupidity.

Trixie’s sighing then, hopping out of the car the instant that Katya shuts the engine off, trudging in her flip flops up to the door where Raina’s unlocking it with a key that she’s fished from her bag. It swings open with the light breeze that’s circulating, before Trixie’s stepping through the threshold wordlessly, climbing the stairs towards her room.

She sighs as soon as she closes the door to her bedroom behind her, marches into her bathroom and ends her day the same way that she had intended to start it -

\- With a frigid shower to shock her body back to life.

*****

Trixie emerges from the shower with her skin speckled blue and hands that tremble with shivers.

She bolts quickly across her room after she pulls on shorts and a tank top, flings herself onto her still unmade bed, amidst sheets and blankets and throw pillows that get squashed beneath her limbs. The fabrics are cool against her her burning skin, and she swallows relaxedly as she buries herself further into them, her throat bobbing with a gulp.

Reaching for her phone that she’s discarded on her bedside table, she taps at the screen methodically. Pearl has sent her three messages since she’d last checked her inbox, mid way through her time at the lake, and whilst reading them, Trixie allows herself an elongated moment of contemplation.

**Pearl: _I got dragged to a 3 year olds dance recital this morning_**

**Pearl: _Trixie I need life updates if I’m going to stay sane_**

**Pearl: _How’s Wisconsin treating you? Tell me it’s not as awful as Brooklyn_**

Trixie doesn’t know; still feels none the wiser on where she stands. She can hear Katya pottering around in the kitchen downstairs - the noise travels throughout the house and up to her echoey room - and knows that she’s going to have to down to have dinner at some point, face Katya and her ever grinning face.

She doesn’t want to, doesn’t think that she can, not when she’s typing out her replies to Pearl in a stream of consciousness that she realises is more than accurate as she goes, her thumbs hitting each letter in a rapid fire of emotions.

Sitting up, she rests her back against the headboard of her bed.

**Trixie: _Why the hell are you associating with 3 year olds?_**

**Trixie: _Life updates are coming_**

**Trixie: _I can’t tell you that. I’d be lying out of my ass_**

Resting her phone in her lap whilst she waits for Pearl to relieve the messages, type out her replies - she doesn’t doubt that she’s going to take a century at the least - Trixie focuses her attention on the uneven patterns of her breathing.

She tries to even them out, inhales for five seconds and then exhales for the same amount of time until her chest no longer rattles with unease. It works, to an extent, and Trixie’s no longer thinking about anything that’s connected to Katya, and what admitting to herself that she likes and wants Katya entails, until her phone buzzes on her lap, vibrates three times consecutively.

Trixie’s impressed at the speed at which Pearl’s replied - thinks it must be the first time since she’s known the girl that she’s taken less than ten minutes to pick up her phone - and lifts her screen towards her face so that she’s able to see the pixels better.

**Pearl: _It was my sister, dumb ass_**

**Pearl: _What’s up?_**

**Pearl: _Life updates!! Stop stalling!!_**

Huffing out a laugh, Trixie bites at her lip. She likes texting Pearl, can easily picture her uttering the words, is able to envision her back in their dorm room in Chicago; surrounded by topically illustrated books on _Degas_ and _Manet_ with a half smoked blunt hanging from her lips.

Trixie begins typing again.

Her words are in free fall, sparking out of her mind and into her fingertips where they shoot outwards towards the keyboard of her phone, until she’s hitting send on more messages than she knows Pearl’s expecting.

**Trixie: _I totally knew that_**

**Trixie: _But life updates?? Get ready, buckle yourself in, we’re about to go on a wild ride through the rocky north woods of Milwaukee aka Trixie Mattel’s life_**

**Trixie: _This is officially crisis mode_**

**Trixie: _And I’m not sure if I’m going to make it_**

**Trixie: _tell Kim she can have my wardrobe if I don’t_**

**Trixie: _But I think I’m in love_**

**Trixie: _Wait that’s an exaggeration_**

**Trixie: _Pearl help_**

She halts momentarily as her breathing intensifies once again, and can sense Pearl rolling her eyes at Trixie from her home in New York, where Trixie knows that she’s staying for the summer. She knows that she’s being melodramatic, possibly - Trixie’s self admittedly brattish and over dramatic on occasions - though doesn’t refrain from spewing out her feelings that are building building building.

**Pearl: _Slow down please my phone is in pain_**

**Pearl: _Who the fuck have you fallen in love (lust?) with in a week_**

**Pearl: _God damn it Trixie you’re a disaster_**

Sarcasm is something that Trixie’s used to dealing with from Pearl, and her messages that are filled to the brim with it are no different. She snorts, runs her fingers through the lengths of her matted hair before she picks up her phone once again, tells herself to think; type slower.

**Trixie: _The sitter that my dads hired_**

**Pearl: _You want to fuck your siblings sitter?_**

**Trixie: _Yes_**

Holding her breath, Trixie pauses before sending through a second message.

**Trixie: _But I think I want to kiss her too_**

Trixie wants to do more than kiss her.

She wants to hold her too, to have Katya hold her in return when she wants and needs her to do so. She longs for Katya’s lips to press themselves to every curve and juncture of her body, that’s flaming with a desire that ignites further whenever Katya looks at her with eyes that are already whispering Trixie’s name, and touches her with hands that are strong; and simultaneously delicate.

**Pearl: _Basically in English, you like her?_**

**Trixie: _Pretty much_**

The confession shocks Trixie to her own core.

**Trixie: _And I’m freaking out_**

**Pearl: _I can’t believe Miss ‘I only do one night stands at house parties’ Mattel likes somebody_**

**Pearl: _Do you know how revolutionary this is?_**

**Pearl: _Kim’s going to be so proud_**

**Trixie: _Pearl, I’m serious_**

**Pearl: _So am I_**

**Pearl: _What’s stopping you from jumping her bones and then, I don’t know, talking to her?_**

**Trixie: _I don’t know if she wants more than sex_**

**Trixie: _And the obvious?? She’s meant to be looking after Raina and the boys_**

**Pearl: _You mean you’re scared she doesn’t want you back?_**

**Pearl: _Raina will understand though right? She seems cool_**

**Trixie: _Exactly, and I mean I guess she would_**

**Trixie: _Honestly I think she already knows_**

**Pearl: _What’s her name?_**

**Trixie: _Katya_**

**Pearl: _Well if Katya doesn’t like you back then she’s an asshole_**

**Pearl: _Go for it dude!! (But maybe talk to Raina to make sure it’s not weird for her or anything??)_**

**Trixie: _But she’s so not an asshole_**

**Trixie: _You think so?? (I’ll definitely talk to her. The boys don’t need to know, but I guess she does)_**

**Pearl: _Trixie if you don’t tell her (and fuck her) by the end of the week then I’ll take a flight to Milwaukee and tell her myself_**

**Trixie: _Please stop being right_**

**Pearl: _It’s what friends are for_**

**Trixie: _Whatever. I’ll text you updates, love you_**

**Pearl: _Better had!! Love you too_**

The conversation is over, Trixie knows, when sends through a final message that consists simply of three hearts. Trixie smiles at it, grins dumbly at herself as she stares at the now black screen of her phone. She sets it down, shuffles her way to the edge of her bed before she’s standing, pulling on a pair of socks that protect her feet from the cooling wood floor.

Trixie leaves her phone on her bed, makes her way to her bedroom door with Pearl’s advice fresh in her mind; to talk, both to Katya and Raina.

She knows undoubtedly that ones going to be considerably easier than the other, albeit unquestionably more nerve wracking initially. Trixie knows her sister, knows her well, and thinks that she’s better equipped to handle any reaction that she might have, compared to Katya, who she doesn’t know, really.

Trixie latches onto the hope that maybe she will, by the end of the summer, before she’s cracking open the door to her room, beginning her walk towards the end of the corridor.

_Raina’s room._

*****

When Raina opens the door after Trixie knocks once, twice, three times, she looks at Trixie like she already knows.

She ushers Trixie into her room, closes the door behind them with a soft thump that echoes around the four lemon walls that are littered with Polaroid snaps of her school friends, and posters that Trixie easily recognises.

Some of them used to be hers; she notices one of the _Spice Girls_ in the far corner that she used to have tacked above her bed, with _girl power_ scrawled across the paper in an electric red that pops amongst the other colours in the room that’s all pastel and muted and soft.

Trixie feels instantly swaddled in warmth - the room looks identical to when she last saw it before leaving for college - when Raina’s tugging on her hand, pulling her over to her spacious bed and under the covers that are a pale shade of periwinkle.

Raina drapes them across Trixie, and closes her laptop that’s sat open at the foot of the bed. She’s turning to face Trixie directly, then, backlit by fairy lights and the last of the evenings light that’s peaking through her blue curtains that match her bed sheets; Trixie appreciates the coordination.

An encouraging smile topples from her lips - Trixie thinks it’s Raina’s queue for her to begin talking - before she’s reaching for a pack of open gummy bears that are sat on her bed side table. She offers them to Trixie, who gladly scoops a small handful from the crinkled plastic, places one on the tip of her tongue before she begins chewing at it.

It’s sweet, sugary, and Trixie’s swallowing it down as she reclines further, digs her shoulder into the headboard that’s softer than the one on her own bed, she recalls.

She hums contentedly, nudges her knee against Raina’s beneath the blankets. It has Raina grunting jokingly, and causes Trixie’s mind to relax into the setting as she mulls over the words and questions that are circulating through her thoughts relentlessly.

Trixie clears her throat once she’s certain of how to articulate her feelings, though Raina is the first to speak.

“Shh, _wait_ , me first-“. Raina begins. Her face reads nothing but earnest, and Trixie’s comforted by her presence that’s familiar, grounding. She reaches for Trixie’s free hand - the one that isn’t still filled with gummy bears - and laces their fingers together with a reassuring flourish.

Trixie listens silently.

“-I spoke to Katya earlier”. Raina tries tentatively, welcomes Trixie’s reaction that consists of wide eyes and shoulders that stiffen. She squeezes Trixie’s hand for good measure.

“You _what_?-”. Trixie mutters, replays Raina’s words on a loop. _I spoke to Katya earlier._

“-Why would you do that?”. She reiterates, her grip on Raina’s hand tightening more than she intends for it to. It causes Raina to huff out a breath through her nose, a sign that she’s already exasperated.

Trixie knows the feeling well, and is apologising through her eyes that are screaming sorry, telling Raina to continue, because Trixie knows that she has an uncontrollable habit of interrupting people; curses herself for having not eradicated it by now.

“Hear me out-“. Raina asserts.

“-I know you. I’ve seen you stare at girls that you like, or find hot, or _whatever_ , for years, even before you came out, and I know that Katya’s no different. _God_ , Trix, you’re so obvious! _She’s_ so obvious! I ‘wanna push you together myself if it means you’ll both stop acting like, I don’t know, fucking _idiots_ ”.

She finishes with a giggle that eases Trixie’s nerves.

Her intentions are nothing short of good and neither are her actions, Trixie realises. Trixie nods her head, and swallows before popping another gummy bear into her mouth. She chews it whilst she thinks up her response, diverts her gaze so that she’s eyeing one of the bulbs on Raina’s fairy lights directly.

It leaves her seeing blurry splotches, much like the sun had at the lake, and Trixie’s blinking furiously seconds later, attempting to clear her line of sight. Raina shakes her head mockingly, and removes her hand from Trixie’s, sneaks two gummy bears from the palm of Trixie’s other hand.

Trixie lets her do it.

“I think I like her”.

“I know you do”.

Their words are barely audible as they continue to speak; quiet murmurs that are only legible to the both of them, boxed in by lemon walls and dusty fairy lights, fading posters and summer nights. It’s a moment that Trixie expects that she’s going to cherish for a while.

“I just wanted to-“. Trixie cuts herself off, before she’s rearranging her sentence.

“-You wouldn’t be mad, or like, feel awkward if anything happened? I don’t ‘wanna ruin anything here, cause she’s technically working here for the next couple of months and-“.

“Trixie, _no_ -“. Raina interrupts.

It leaves Trixie wondering whether it’s a habit that she’s unknowingly passed onto her - she thinks it might be when Raina looks pointlessly guilty - until she’s forgetting about it, shovelling the last of the gummy bears into her mouth. She chews them thoroughly, with her jaw that’s beginning to ache, as she listens to Raina intently.

“-She likes you too. She told me! You have to do what you want here, I have no business stoping you. Like none. Y’know that, _right_?”.

Humming, Trixie nods her head. She’s more than aware that it’s her choice, and that no one is able to dictate that, ultimately. She knows that Raina’s right, despite the nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach that seeks reassurance and affirmation as if her sole existence depends on it.

She knows that she doesn’t need it, though, despite her gut that’s wrenching, and is nodding her head again, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

“You’re growing up too fast, Rai. What’s next, boyfriends? Girlfriends?”. Trixie taunts, watches Raina’s cheeks blush scarlet.

Trixie knows that she’s right.

“Ok, we’re done here”. Raina cackles, her cheeks still pink with embarrassment. Trixie lifts a hand to pinch at them half heartedly, though Raina’s one step ahead of her, is already nudging Trixie out of the bed with her elbow, sending her towards the door.

Trixie complies, laughs along with her sister who she embraces gently, her arms looped around her middle that she’s able to squeeze lovingly. The action makes Raina groan, though Trixie doesn’t care; she’s squeezing harder and muttering _thank you thank you thank you_ into Raina’s hair that’s getting caught in her mouth.

She pulls away reluctantly when Raina chokes out a complaint, and is pushing down on the handle to Raina’s bedroom door when the younger raises her voice once again.

“Oh, and Trix?”.

“Hm?”.

“If you’re ‘gonna fuck her-“. She knocks on the wall behind her head with her knuckles jokingly. “-Remember the walls aren’t as thick as ‘ya think”.

Trixie whines in response, and throws a stuck up middle finger over her shoulder before she’s leaving the room in a fluster, tripping over her own feet and elbowing the wall clumsily.

_It’s her turn to blush furiously._

*****

Trixie migrates to the living room that night when she’s certain that everybody else is tucked up in bed, a cup of half drank chamomile tea in hand.

It’s lukewarm by now - she’d taken it out to the porch in the backyard after she’d made it in the kitchen half an hour or so prior - and no longer burns at her hands when she cradles it close to chest.

She can feel it warming her body from the inside out as she drinks it, tucked into the armchair in the corner of the room. She’s thankful for it when she drapes a blanket over herself from the back of the chair, because the temperature has plummeted rapidly from the heights it reached during the day, like it mostly always does in the greenery of Wisconsin; with nothing to hold the heat.

Trixie doesn’t understand it - she tells herself that she’s never been good at science, or maybe it’s geography - when she’s draining the cup for all it has, setting it down on the coffee table in front of her before she picks up her phone from her lap.

She stares at the blank screen aimlessly, catches sight of her reflection in the shiny glass that’s covered with fingerprints. Trixie grimaces, and swipes it against the fabric of the blanket in order to remove the marks that consists of grease, oil, _dirt_.

It’s still not entirely clean when Trixie rises it again, though she doesn’t know what she expected from a haphazard dust across the cotton. Her reflection is still distorted, a little blurry from smudges that she begins to ignore when she switches the screen on, scrolls through her messages that haven’t changed in hours.

She sighs tiredly at the fact, and is switching it off again before she’s able to load any of her social media’s - she doesn’t have the concentration for them - is discarding it onto aforementioned coffee table.

It lands on the wood with a hollow thud when she drops it, and she watches it displace a coster so that it’s off centre. She doesn’t care; has never taken interest in symmetry or things of the sorts, and doesn’t bother with fussing to rearrange it.

She begins fidgeting instead, repositions her body restlessly in the crook of the arm chair until she’s sitting comfortably, her legs folded perplexedly beneath her. It eases the knotting in her stomach that’s begun to flare up again - her mind wanders helplessly towards Katya in the hallow silence - as she allows her eyes to slip shut.

It’s something that she can’t help, no matter how hard she tries to drown out the voice in her head that’s chanting the girls name, projecting images of her face onto Trixie’s eyelids that are fluttering, opening again begrudgingly.

Trixie feels _fucked_ ; can’t think of a word that more aptly describes her situation.

Shifting once again, Trixie digs her teeth into her bottom lip. The taste is metallic as her hand travels on its own accord, from her knee upwards. It lands on her inner thigh, bare beneath the blanket that has sweat prickling at her skin.

She coasts her nails across it, relishes in the light scratch that has her shivering in delight. It feels good, and Trixie doesn’t care - she’s already gotten off once today and she’ll do it for the rest of the night if she has to - because her mind is lost as she slips her free hand beneath her shorts, rests it over her underwear that’s already ruined, she knows.

Her wetness seeps through the cotton, and dampens her finger that glides across her lips. It draws a whimper from her throat, and Trixie’s swallowing to keep it down even though she’s certain that nobody upstairs can hear her from the living room, regardless of Raina’s words that are still harboured at the forefront of her mind.

_The walls aren’t as thick as you think._

Trixie works on erasing said words, if only for the time being, and pulls her panties to the side. She knows that she’s either going to have to bin them or have them dry cleaned thoroughly, but it’s not a priority when her fingertips press to her folds that are tingling with sensitivity.

She drags one finger across the hood of her clit - it’s swollen and pulsing with all of the blood in her body - and presses down on the bundle of nerves.

It makes her twitch pleasantly. Her hips jerk up into her touch that’s quickening with each passing second, as her chest rises and falls with ragged inhales and exhales. She wants to come, needs to come when she’s lowering her free hand, slipping two crooked fingers inside of herself.

She’s close, teetering on edge when she curls her fingers deeper, moans, rubs in circular motions across her clit that’s almost too sensitive to touch. Her nipples are hardening painfully against her thin tank top too, and she knows that she’s seconds away from finishing until -

Katya’s strutting into the room.

Trixie wants to _die_. Her hips are bucking against her hands but she can’t finish herself off, not with Katya bounding over towards her, sitting herself down on the arm of the chair right next to Trixie. She sits so that they’re eye level, and Trixie’s forced to stare into Katya’s eyes that are all knowing, with her own that are blown out wide, blurred with lust.

The blanket covers Trixie from the shoulders up, and she doesn’t think she’s ever been more thankful to not be seen when Katya smirks naughtily, so that Trixie knows that Katya’s more than aware of what she’s doing.

She’s retracted her fingers from inside of herself slowly, but is still applying pressure to her clit with the tips of her fingers; she can’t and won’t lose the orgasm that she’s been chasing, even with Katya staring right through her, revelling in the blush that covers the entirety of Trixie’s face.

“Aren’t you heading to bed?”. Katya queries.

Her voice is light, teasing, and Trixie still wants to die because Katya’s acting so nonchalant, so unaffected by Trixie’s frizzy hair and restless movements, her glazed eyes and sweaty collarbones.

Trixie swallows nervously.

“Aren’t _you_?”.

“Not yet-“. Katya shakes her head defiantly.

“-I wanted to come and say goodnight”.

Katya’s tone remains the same - Trixie thinks it’s almost monotone - but then she’s leaning closer to Trixie, wrapping her arm securely around Trixie’s shoulders that are drawn up tight. She’s inhaling sharply, and then relaxing when she feels Katya’s nails dig into her skin, acknowledges her breath that’s hot against the shell of her ear.

“G’night”. Trixie whispers.

It’s half hearted and both know it, from the way that Trixie’s shoulders sag and Katya chuckles lowly. The vibration travels down Trixie’s spine, and then she’s reciprocating Katya’s advances, allowing her body to fall against the strong pillar that is Katya.

“Just good night?”.

“Mhm”.

Katya can still see Trixie’s hand flinching periodically beneath the blanket, can feel her shoulder flexing as she bends her wrist, circles her fingers. She wants to feel more, and does when she places her hand on top of Trixie’s through the blanket, allows Trixie to gasp in the pleasure that wracks her body.

“I wanted to say goodnight properly”.

“Fuck, _Katya_ ”.

“How close are you?”.

Trixie’s heart is hammering, because Katya’s hand on top of hers has her right back on edge, staring down the cliffs edge that she can feel her body toppling off of. She wants to let herself fall, and whimpers for good measure when Katya presses her lips to the pulse point in Trixie’s neck.

“Super close”. She whines.

“Finish off for me-”. Katya grazes her teeth against Trixie’s skin.

“- _Please_?”. She adds.

Trixie wants to do it - hell, she needs to do it - and is nodding her head as her hand begins moving more rapidly once again. Katya follows her movements, hums into the juncture between Trixie’s neck and shoulder, where she’s tucked her head.

She’s lost for words, can’t find the ones that she’s looking for, as is Trixie; addled and unhinged. Her weight is almost entirely resting on Katya, who isn’t budging under Trixie’s hefty body, and Trixie’s grateful for it when she allows her eyes to slip closed once again.

_It’s overwhelming._

“Good girl-“. Katya taunts. “-Maybe next time you think about touching yourself in here you’ll be a ‘lil quieter”.

_It’s overwhelming._

“I could hear you from the kitchen”. Katya adds.

 _It’s overwhelming_.

Trixie exhales Katya’s name, threads the fingers of her free hand with Katya’s that’s still sat on her shoulder, massaging and gripping occasionally. She digs her nails unwittingly into the palm of it, and Katya hisses into her neck before she’s groaning in response, sucking a mark into Trixie’s tanned skin.

Katya pulls away with a satisfied hum.

“Y’know, I kind of felt bad about teasing you earlier”. Katya admits.

She doesn’t, really, though it has the effect on Trixie that she’s been hoping for. Trixie mewls, before her moans are cut off and she’s grinding down onto her hand - Katya’s hand - that’s a constant plane of titillation.

“I hate you”.

“No you don’t”.

“Katya”.

“ _Trixie_ ”.

“I’m ‘gonna come”.

Trixie does. She comes hard, with Katya’s hand covering hers, their fingers pressing together through the knitted blanket. She keeps Trixie’s wrist moving when the lighter blonde stops, halts because it’s too much with Katya there, next to her, touching her.

She wants to scream, but can’t find her voice that’s buried within the depths of her chest, locked away to give space to the minuscule whimpers that she releases instead, in one long drawn out simper.

Katya absorbs it all, feels her heart clench in time with Trixie’s stomach that’s twisting, calming with aftershocks that wash over her body in clattering waves. She wants more, needs more like Trixie does, but then she’s worming her way out of Trixie’s hold, placing a singular kiss to her cheek before she’s standing, straightening her shirt.

Trixie keens after her.

_“Goodnight, Trixie”._

*****

When Katya’s enveloped by the warmth of her bed, she allows her mind to reel freely.

She can still smell Trixie’s shampoo on her shirt, and her perfume that’s clinging to the skin of her hands, wherever she’d pressed them to Trixie’s clothes; her body.

Katya wills herself to ignore it.

It’s not possible - she can’t shake the sight of Trixie coming out of her mind no matter how hard she tries to - because Trixie’s there, sitting on the throne of her subconscious with a crown upon her head as she stares Katya down with a smug smirk upon her face.

Regret fills her veins.

She regrets teasing Trixie to the extent that she had, wishes she hadn’t pushed her to the edge of her limits and then embraced her with open arms and delicate neck kisses.

It’s left her more confused than she had been initially, when she’d messaged Ginger, terrified because of the emotions that rose in her chest whenever she thought about the eldest sibling of the family that she’s working for for the remainder of the summer.

Trixie has her feeling like she’s going insane in the best way that she’s ever known, and she decides that she doesn’t care when she rolls over, buries herself in one of the blankets that’s been provided for her by the Mattel’s.

It’s soft, and Katya’s taken back once again to the silk of Trixie’s skin and the twitches of her body, the mahogany depths of her eyes and the way that she grins with her teeth that are white and gleaming, though crooked and uneven.

She wants to lick at them, and then kiss at her plump lips that she bites too often - Katya doesn’t know how they look so hydrated when she knows that they should be chapped, cracking - before she trails said kisses anywhere that Trixie asks her to.

The regret dissipates, because she knows.

_She needs to talk to Trixie._


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their lips disconnect with a pop, and a string of spit hangs between them until Trixie breaks it off with a giggle when she stands abruptly, pulls Katya up with her.
> 
> She stumbles at first, hits her shin on the coffee table with a groan that leaves Katya keening after her, wrapping her arms protectively around Trixie’s waist from behind. Trixie leans back into her touch, and shivers when Katya’s lips drag across the skin of her shoulder blades; they’re still sensitive with sun burn.
> 
> “Your bedroom, hm?”.
> 
> “My bedroom”. Trixie confirms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m not going to say much here apart from once again, thank you for all of the love and continuous support!! <3
> 
> i hope you enjoy this,, feel free to let me know your,, thoughts

Trixie spends the next week actively avoiding Katya.

She tells herself that it’s because the woman has packed her siblings entertainment schedule so tight that Trixie isn’t sure how Katya has time to breathe, or the concentration to keep her mind on Raina, along with Dylan and Riley who Trixie can imagine are running her ragged.

They’re loud and boisterous, Riley more so than Dylan, and Trixie can hear them most of the time from where she stays cooped up in her room, bolting up and down the staircase and screaming banter back and forth at one and other.

Trixie doesn’t understand it; they stay awake longer than she ever could have at twelve years old after long days out, screaming into their games console headsets about things that Trixie doesn’t care to understand. Winners and losers and wrong buttons pressed.

Katya has taken them to the movies twice and the water park that’s thirty miles away once, along with a visit to the nearest library that had been a questionable choice, according to Raina.

She’d told Trixie of Katya’s futile attempt to get the boys to sign up for a library card - Trixie doesn’t understand why they’ve never had one - only for them to pay the computers in the digital section more attention.

It makes Trixie laugh, but Katya tries again, and takes them the following day when the heat outside is no longer as sweltering and they’re able to focus, for the most part. They return with five books each; all fantasy filled novels that they pay more attention to than Trixie initially thought they would, when she finds them settled on the living room couch.

Katya’s there, too, and it’s the first time that Trixie’s seen her in days, but she’s grinning proudly up at her, then across to the boys like it’s some kind of achievement to get them reading off of paper rather than computer screens.

Trixie guesses that it is - she doesn’t think that she’s seen them so engrossed in a book since they were reading at a kindergarten level - and is even more awestruck when Raina pads into the room from the kitchen, a stack of books on fashion design heavy in her arms.

It’s maddening, almost. Trixie wants to ask Katya where she swapped her brothers and sister and who she’s brought back, because the boys have barely acknowledged her by the time that she’s sat down next to Katya, their heads buried deep into rivers of words that are mystical, magical, wonderful.

Raina grants Trixie just as little attention. She curls herself up on the armchair in the corner of the room - Trixie blushes furiously just at the sight of the hideous piece of furniture - and forgoes batting an eyelid at how Katya’s eyeing Trixie; boastfully and obnoxiously.

She smirks then, shuffles closer to Trixie on the leather couch that creaks beneath her weight. Trixie frowns, though finds herself rolling her eyes, chuckling when Katya chooses to nudge her with her elbow jokingly. She motions over towards the boys, mouths _they’re reading_ directly in front of Trixie’s face, because she can.

Trixie allows it, decides that Katya has every reason to gloat.

It cements how much she wants her, if anything, when Katya’s pulling Trixie into her side with an arm that she has looped around her shoulder, letting Trixie giggle into her ear about how _stupid_ she is, how Katya must be a witch from one of the boys’ books.

She wants to kiss Katya every time that Katya shushes her, tells her to be quiet because she’s disrupting the boys’ and Raina’s reading. Trixie doesn’t want to listen - she’s never been one to be silent and doesn’t plan on starting merely because Katya’s ushering her to - and instead chuckles louder into Katya’s shoulder.

Katya shoves her harder, though relents when Trixie sags against her, props her thighs on top of Katya’s and plants her feet on the couch the other side of her. Katya settles her free hand on Trixie’s knee that’s bare, littered with a bruise or two that are a mystery to Trixie; she’s clumsier than she’s acknowledged and doesn’t care to find out where she got them from.

She winces when Katya presses her fingertips to them gently, watches them fade beneath her touch and then darken again when she strokes across them tenderly. Katya grins knowingly at her response, though stops when she catches sight of Raina’s smug expression, peering at them from behind one of her books that’s titled _silhouettes_.

It has the both of them caught off guard, because Trixie’s already concluded that she needs Katya in every way that she’s able to think of, can already feel Katya’s strong, toned arms pinning her to walls, her mattress, the glass of her shower.

The thoughts are alluring, tantalising, and Trixie’s left focusing her attention on how Katya’s nails are digging into her shoulder blades. They’re tracing the marks that have only just faded from days prior - when Katya had brought Trixie off with only her words and encouraging touches - and Trixie wants them to carve harder, wants a lasting impression of Katya on her skin.

Only it’s not going to happen; _yet_.

Trixie’s told herself that she’s going to wait, at least until the boys and Raina are out of their way. Visions have been cantering through her mind of Raina hearing Trixie’s whines from her room, or the boys walking in on them with their lips locked together and hands tugging at each other’s clothing.

She doesn’t want it.

It’s beyond jarring, and Trixie’s left shivering from the sheer thought - she’s both disturbed and alarmed - when Katya unwinds herself from Trixie, excuses herself to the kitchen.

Trixie sighs, and picks herself up off of the couch too, steadies her wavering legs that are trembling. She knows that she doesn’t have long to wait; her aunt lives two towns over and has offered to take care of the boys and Raina for the weekend, claimed that they needed a change of scenery.

Katya hadn’t argued, and neither had Trixie when she considered the amount of free time she’d have with Katya, the variety of space that they’d have surrounding them in the house that Trixie feels a little engulfed by, sometimes.

They leave in three days, and Trixie’s counting down the seconds with her legs crossed and her thighs pressed together, as is Katya, who’s leaning against the counter top in the kitchen when Trixie joins her.

She’s short of breath, and is working on calming the blush that’s risen to her cheeks, the fire that’s been lit beneath her skin that’s beginning to scorch through to her already charring bones. Trixie gets it, understands more than she thinks Katya’s able to comprehend when Trixie rounds the breakfast bar, squeezes Katya’s hip tauntingly.

Katya’s body jerks in response, though Trixie simply perseveres.

Her lack of patience shakes the both of them.

*****

When Saturday rolls around, Trixie awakens with a clearer head than she has in days.

The sun is already at its peak position in the sky by the time that she drags herself out of bed at eleven o’clock, with the knowledge that the boys and Raina have been gone for over an hour already, prepared to spend the day baking cookies and muffins; if she knows her aunt well enough.

She’s as country as they come - Trixie pales in comparison to her - and owns a ranch with two barns and stables for her horses, more land than she knows what to do with and a house that hasn’t altered since the _1950’s_.

It has a log burning fireplace in the living room and a cast iron cooker in the kitchen that’s been cooking family meals for longer than Trixie’s been alive, and Trixie already knows that the boys and Raina are going to be complaining about the seclusion from reality as soon as they return on Sunday night.

Trixie almost doesn’t feel guilty about it.

 _Almost_.

She’s glad to be left to her own devices, with just Katya roaming around the house. It puts her at ease, and she showers and dresses back into her sleep clothes in a trance, before she makes her way downstairs, pours herself a cup of coffee from the ready boiled pot that she assumes Katya’s left out for her.

It’s bitter to her taste when she sips at it, lets it burn and blister the tip of her tongue because she doesn’t have the effort left in her legs to walk to the fridge, fish out the creamer that’s shoved to the back shelf.

She knows that it’s a questionable choice - she never drinks black coffee unless it’s heavily sweetened - but she can’t drift around the kitchen like she wants to, or without visualising Katya sat captivatingly at the breakfast bar.

The feeling doesn’t waver as she begins picking out the ingredients for a modest yet late breakfast, or an early lunch to satisfy the hunger that’s gurgling in her stomach. She picks out the carton of eggs that she thinks are nearing their expire by date, along with a half consumed loaf of bread that’s closer to being stale than it is fresh.

She makes a mental note to remind Katya that they need to pay the grocery store a visit, before she’s cracking a handful of eggs and scrambling them into the saucepan that’s been heating up on the stove, placing more bread than she needs into the toaster.

The eggs sizzle immediately, and are on their way to being over half way cooked when Trixie hears the floor boards in the hallway creak. She doesn’t jump, or flinch at the sudden noise, knows that it’s Katya making her way towards Trixie, in the kitchen that smells of roasted coffee and baked eggs.

Trixie swivels her body to face Katya when she steps into the room, pauses just inside of the arched doorway that towers above her. Trixie smiles tentatively as she continues stirring the eggs with a wooden spoon that her family have had for years - it’s burnt on both ends and is stained with age - whilst Katya smiles tight lipped in response.

“Enough there for two?”. She questions, perching herself on one of the stools at the breakfast bar. She folds her hands beneath her chin and rests the weight of her head on them as Trixie nods sheepishly, points half heartedly towards the cupboard that Katya knows is stacked with plates, dishes, mugs.

“Might be enough for _fifty_ , honestly”. Trixie chuckles. She feels overexposed, suddenly, when Katya’s rising to her feet once again, brushing past Trixie and to the cupboard to retrieve plates for the both of them.

She’s still in her sleep clothes; cotton shorts that are tight around her hips and waist, and a short sleeved crop top that emphasises her thicker sides, her rounded stomach that Katya wants to sink her teeth into.

Both items are see through to an extent - Trixie knows that anybody could make out the lines of her underwear through her shorts, and her darker nipples beneath her top - but Katya’s gaze doesn’t waves from Trixie’s face, even as her breasts bounce with each step that she takes.

Trixie dishes up the eggs, butters the toast and cuts it into uneven triangles before she’s carrying the plates over to the breakfast bar, where Katya’s sat once again. She’s poured two glasses of juice; orange for her and apple for Trixie, and they sit directly opposite each other on the marble of the counter top.

Smiling gratefully, Trixie sits down.

“Good sleep?”. She queries nonchalantly, training her eyes on Katya’s that are bright, wide, awake.

The light from the window at the end of the kitchen reflects off of them, and Trixie feels like she’s drowning in a lake filled with algae before Katya’s even responded, or even had chance to contemplate an answer between shovelling fork fulls of egg into her mouth and biting at crunchy, buttery toast.

Katya shrugs then, is smirking around a mouthful of toast that causes her cheeks to bulge. She knows the sight must be hideous, but she’s swallowing it down and sipping at her glass of juice, all whilst focusing on the rise and fall of Trixie’s chest.

She’s breathing heavily, and Katya’s already certain that she knows why.

“It’s, y’know, fine-“. Katya exhales. “-I woke up _super_ horny, though”.

Trixie knows when she’s being challenged, and can see the daring glint flickering in Katya’s pupils from where she’s reclined against the small backrest of the stool, her head cocked to one side. It screams defiance, and Trixie wants to kick her for having the nerve to think that Trixie won’t rise to said challenge.

She thinks that she might do so - their legs are tangled together beneath the breakfast bar and Trixie knows that she’d only have to jolt her leg to the side a little to cause Katya to quiver in pain - even as she heats under the girls unyielding gaze.

“You did?”.

“I did. Super inconvenient, right?”.

Trixie shrugs simply. She’s eaten almost half of her eggs and all of her toast, bar the crusts that she’s pushed towards the edge of her plate. Katya seem to have the opposite opinion, and is stealing them from Trixie’s plate once she’s positive that Trixie’s not going to mix them with her eggs that she’s savouring.

She bites into them when she realises that Trixie’s not going to respond verbally, and washes them down quickly with a sip of juice that’s sharp, acidic.

“You don’t think that’s inconvenient?”. Katya tries again.

She’s more than aware that Trixie hadn’t expected their conversation to take the turn that it has, on a Saturday morning before noon has struck. It’s taken the wind out of her, too; she’s managed to fluster herself in her attempts to heat Trixie up, frustrate her further, and is cursing herself out internally for the lack of common sense that she’s portraying.

It’s stupid, but Trixie doesn’t care. She’s scooping the last of her eggs into her mouth, draining her glass of apple juice and leaning the top of her body further across the breakfast bar as Katya gawks up at her.

“D’ya ‘wanna know something?-”. Trixie asks, has Katya nodding affirmatively before she’s concluded her sentence.

“-I don’t think that’s inconvenient at all”.

Katya’s perking up once again at Trixie’s words. They hit her like a dagger to her gut that’s fluttering, twisting with each brush of Trixie’s legs against her own, every soft smile that Trixie throws her way. She revels in them, absorbs every hitch in her breathing and each shiver that runs down the length of her spine and beyond.

She can feel the confidence seeping back into her bloodstream with each passing second, and silently thanks Trixie for not saying anything more, for remaining mute even when she outstretches her arm across the table, loops her fingers with Katya’s.

“Why not?-“. Katya starts.

She’s sprung back quicker from Trixie’s retaliations than Trixie initially thought she would, when she’d been gaping across at her, her jaw loose and unhinged. Trixie doesn’t know how she does it - she’s got Trixie wrapped around her little finger that she’s stroking across the back of Trixie’s hand teasingly - but doesn’t care to find out when Katya proceeds.

“-Is it ‘cause you know it was because of you?”.

Trixie does.

She’s shrugging her shoulders, mumbling maybe as Katya squeezes her hand tighter. Trixie can feel her nails digging into the palm of it, and she’s taken back to Katya massaging at her shoulders, making Trixie finish herself in front of her because she’d been loud; too loud.

Katya nods her head in understanding, before she’s dropping Trixie’s hand, folding herself back into the confines of her shell that Trixie doesn’t want her to retreat to. She looks uncomfortable, and Trixie thinks that it’s the first time that she’s witnessed Katya drop whatever guard she had built up around herself, constructed from comedy and strength and fortitude.

“Look, I uh, I don’t ‘wanna make this awkward, Trixie-“. Katya intervenes, though Trixie cuts her short.

There’s a sense of uncertainty present that Trixie wishes would vanish, evaporate into the coffee and citrus scented air surrounding them. She wants to smash it to the ground, along with her glass that’s now empty, and her plate that she’s cleared with ease due to the hunger in her stomach - for both Katya and the food - that’s refusing to disappear.

“ _No_ , no you’re not - you’re not making things awkward-“. Trixie swallows.

“-I want this too. You _know_ I want this too, god damn it”. She huffs.

Trixie likes Katya, and knows that she does, but she’s not above reminding Katya how oblivious and obtuse she can be sometimes, when Trixie’s actively reciprocating her every advance. Trixie’s words have Katya blinking slowly; she’s taking in the situation and is assessing it in the way she can with Trixie standing up off the stool, rounding the breakfast bar to stand in front of her.

She cowers into Katya’s space, and Katya swivels her stool reflexively to allow Trixie to stand between her thighs that are spread wide, hugging Trixie’s hips when she closes them again.

Trixie grins - she’s in Katya’s space and Katya’s allowing her to be there - before she’s pushing Katya’s hair away from her face with a gentle touch, bundling the longer strands up in her fist with more force once Katya’s visibly relaxed.

Inhaling, Trixie let’s go.

“I have some errands to run today, but I could easily get back by dinner-“. Trixie pauses, loops her arms loosely around Katya’s neck instead.

“-If you ‘wanna pick up some wine, we could do the usual?”.

She finishes with a tone that’s hopeful, and scratches her nails along the buzzed hair at the nape of Katya’s neck. It tickles her fingertips, but looks like it tickles Katya more when she’s twitching, chuckling lowly for Trixie to stop because it’s too much for her.

Trixie snorts, but listens. She settles her hands on Katya’s shoulders instead as Katya’s own circle themselves around Trixie’s waist that’s arched into Katya’s hold; secure and unmoving.

Katya looks contemplative, and Trixie longs for her to say yes so that she can finally get her hands on Katya’s skin, feel Katya’s pulse beneath her lips when she scatters chapstick covered kisses across her body. She’s certain that she will, and is more than convinced when Katya arches an eyebrow, pulls Trixie in further so that their chests are pressed delightfully together.

“The _usual_?”.

Trixie nods once - the usual - and Katya gulps.

“And maybe you could fuck me afterwards?”. Trixie adds aloud.

She draws Katya’s attention away from her eyes and down to her lips that are parting in preparation, enveloping Katya’s own plump lips into a kiss that Trixie deems to be long overdue when Katya sighs into it, licks her tongue across Trixie’s teeth.

It’s hot, soft, _wet_ , and Katya tastes like a mix of the baked eggs and toast, butter and orange juice that are clinging to her tongue. Trixie doesn’t care; she knows she tastes the same and is lapping it up in greedy, over zealous movements that Katya’s loving.

Trixie doesn’t want to pull away, and doesn’t until she’s breathless, panting into the crook of Katya’s neck that’s beginning to sweat. Trixie drags her bottom lip across a rogue drop of it, allows the salt to caress at her tongue that’s chasing everything that Katya has to offer her.

She takes takes takes but Katya gives, hands out all of herself to Trixie on a silver platter because she deserves it, she thinks, from the way that Trixie shoots pleading glances directly into her blown out eyes once she’s regained her breath.

A nod is the only response she can muster.

“ _Yeah_ ”.

*****

Trixie leaves the house an hour later and is back before dinner; like she’d told Katya she would be.

She takes the car that her fathers left for her in the garage - it’s a small red thing with only two doors and little to no space in the trunk - and drives it into the nearest town. She picks up the things that she needs, shampoo and toiletries, which turns out to be harder than she thought it would be in the handful of stores that she’s able to find; all tiny convenience stops and outdated drugstores.

It makes her yearn for Chicago a little more than she has been for the past week. She’s been content, has grown happy to be back in her home state where she’s able to navigate the roads without having to use a map, or ask strangers for directions to the nearest coffee shop -

-But it hits her then, when she’s unable to find her organic deodorant and naturally sourced tea tree conditioner that she swears by, in the horrendously strip light lit stores. She knows it’s trivial, can hear Pearl calling her spoilt from miles away in New York and knows that she’s right.

Trixie kicks herself; it’s a habit that she’s developed since she’s been home.

She pulls her car into the driveway before four o’clock, and has it locked securely back in the garage ten minutes later. She strolls into the house with ease - Katya’s left the door unlocked for her - and dumps her bag that’s stacked to the brim with necessities in the hallway.

The air around her is cold, and Trixie gathers that it’s from the patio doors that are pulled wide open when she steps further into the house, spots Katya sitting on a sun lounger on the lawn. Trixie doesn’t disturb her, but chuckles to herself at the ashtray that’s sat on the doorstep, with a half extinguished cigarette balancing on the edge of it as she begins climbing the stairs to her room.

She knows that it’s Katya’s ideal idea of relaxation, and doesn’t dare knock it when she’s stepping into her shower after discarding her clothes, throwing her hair up into a loose bun.

It keeps her face free from any loose strands as she douses her body in water, and her new shea butter shower gel that smooths at her skin. She shaves too, and slathers her body in spiced coconut moisturiser once she’s emerged from the shower, dried off her body in a fluffy cotton towel.

She rummages in the depths of her closet once she’s done, and pulls on some of her nicer underwear; a cream bra and thong that she’d forgotten she owned. She covers them in a simple white t-shirt, and beige silk sleep shorts that glide smoothly against her freshly cleansed, hydrated skin.

They feel good and look just as seductive, she thinks, when she gives herself a once over in the wall length mirror that stands in her bedroom, runs her hands from her chest down to her hips that jut out from her waist. She’s been careful not to overdo it - she wants to feel as comfortable as possible, and is certain that Katya does too - with her untamed, ragged hair and plain yet effective choice of clothing.

She knows that Katya will probably be wearing shorts and a sweater, or a tank top like she normally does, sans a bra that Trixie’s never seen her wear. Trixie doesn’t mind; she likes being able to see the shape of Katya’s body beneath her clothing, how she twists and flexes her spine just to get closer to whoever she’s talking to.

Trixie’s proven right when herself and Katya find themselves huddled up on the sofa that night, with Katya wrapped up in an old Boston college sweater and gym shorts that are cut to her mid thigh.

She wants to laugh at the predictability.

Katya’s left out an array of snacks for them; pretzels and chips and nuts that have been divided into small bowls that are scattered across the coffee table in front of the couch. There’s wine too, like Trixie knew there would be, and she drinks it from the blue mug that Katya’s given her like it’s water or fruit juice.

She doesn’t touch the snacks - she’s too on edge to eat and is relatively full from the sandwich that she’d picked up in town - but appreciates the sentiment, and the hint of pride that laces Katya’s voice when she points them out.

Trixie wants to kiss her immediately, but doesn’t until an hour later when they’re curled into each other’s bodies, and Katya’s talking, rambling, whispering to Trixie about what’s going on on the TV show that they have on in the background.

She has her hand resting on Trixie’s stomach, beneath her shirt, and is tickling across the skin that’s softer than the silk of Trixie’s shorts, she thinks, littered with faint blonde peach fuzz that she can barely feel.

It has Trixie giggling into her mug of wine that’s been refilled four times already, and she sets it down onto the coffee table once she’s drained it, allows herself to settle back into Katya’s lap. She has one leg on each side of Katya’s waist, is straddling her with her arms resting on the back of the couch that’s sinking beneath their weight.

Trixie sits on Katya’s thighs that are firm, refusing to budge, and closes her eyes as Katya’s breath hits her face, sends her eyelashes fluttering.

“Do you think that the blonde looks like Ellen? _Trixie_ -“. Katya tilts Trixie’s head forward with her free hand that’s gripping her chin.

“-Do you?”.

Katya’s words are noticeably slurred, but Trixie knows that hers are too because of the blood red wine, the tipsy state that it’s left her in. Trixie giggles once again, and is shaking her head no because she doesn’t have time for Katya’s unintelligible comments when she’s grinding down achingly slowly on her thighs, pressing kisses to Katya’s eyelids and cheekbones.

“Shut up-“. Trixie huffs.

“-Shut up shut up _shut up_ ”.

Trixie moves her hands off of the back of the couch to tangle them in Katya’s hair, and tugs them closer closer together. It causes Katya to hiss, move both of her hands to Trixie’s hips that are bucking into her touch, her thighs clamping around Katya’s.

Both of their chests are heaving, struggling to draw in the air that they need to keep them moving, chuckling hotly into each other’s faces, necks.

“But Trixie, Trixie, she looks like _Ellen_ ”.

“Do you honestly care more about that fuckin’ TV show than you do about me right now?”.

Katya gulps.

“ _No_ ”.

Trixie’s grins, and then Katya’s lips are on hers, her hands pressing against the small of Trixie’s back, pushing them impossibly closer together. Trixie feels like she can decipher each individual fingerprint on the tips of Katya’s fingers when they dip beneath the waistband of her shorts, grasp at the skin with a need that resonates with Trixie deep in her core.

She’s tipsy, Trixie’s established as much, but is coherent and logical enough to mutter her consents when Katya’s hands are back on her thighs, gripping them with so much vigour that Trixie’s certain she’s going to have garlands of bruises littering them for days.

Trixie doesn’t care; she wants them there, wants to ache blissfully when she wakes up the following morning with Katya at her side, their limbs entangled together and tacky with sweat that’s dampened the bed sheets.

Katya seems to understand without Trixie having to utter a word, and hums into Trixie’s open mouth. The vibrations travel down Trixie’s throat and into her chest, past her stomach and through her thighs that she’s allowed to sink fully down onto Katya’s sturdy frame.

Their lips disconnect with a pop, and a string of spit hangs between them until Trixie breaks it off with a giggle when she stands abruptly, pulls Katya up with her.

She stumbles at first, hits her shin on the coffee table with a groan that leaves Katya keening after her, wrapping her arms protectively around Trixie’s waist from behind. Trixie leans back into her touch, and shivers when Katya’s lips drag across the skin of her shoulder blades; they’re still sensitive with sun burn.

“Your bedroom, _hm_?”.

“My bedroom”. Trixie confirms.

She pulls herself out of Katya’s hold, and is yards ahead of the shorter girl by the time that they’re half way up the staircase, panting with both want and exertion. Trixie can feel herself beginning to sweat, and hopes that it’s not showing through her shirt that’s sticking to her skin, itching at her underarms.

It’s irritating, but Trixie doesn’t know why she’s still clothed at all. She’s pulling it over her head as soon as Katya closes the door to Trixie’s room behind her, is tossing it to the corner of the room.

She swears she’ll pick it up later.

The room is hot, and Trixie can still feel her stomach that’s sitting heavy with the wine until Katya’s scrutinising stare sobers her up in an instant. She’s striding confidently towards Trixie, on legs that are stealthy in their movements.

Trixie wants them wrapped around her, wants to wrap herself around them because Katya’s toned, muscular in a way that’s subtle; Trixie’s never had it in a partner before, and thinks that she loves it, a little.

Katya smirks knowingly, loops her arms around Trixie’s bare waist. Her hands travel effortlessly up Trixie’s back, unclasp her bra with a practiced ease that Trixie envies, before she’s pulling her shorts down too. It’s all done swiftly, so rapidly that Trixie almost forgets to blink until Katya’s snapping the elastic of her thong against her hip, causing Trixie to jump and yelp.

“Sorry-“. Katya licks her lips. “-Didn’t hurt ‘ya, did I?”.

She didn’t.

Trixie shakes her head, pulls aforementioned thong off herself - Katya seems to have forgotten in her stupor, drooling at the sight of a half naked Trixie - and guides Katya’s hands back to her body.

“I don’t care if you hurt me-“. Trixie tugs at Katya’s sweater to encourage her to remove it.

“-I just want you. _Fuck_ , Katya, I want you so bad”. She whines.

Katya nods her head, begins walking backwards towards Trixie’s bed with Trixie hot on her heels. She peels her sweater off of her self, sends her shorts following it soon after. She’s not wearing underwear, and Trixie’s more grateful for it than she thinks she’s ever been when Katya’s twisting her around, pushing Trixie down onto the downy bed.

The covers are pulled back, and the sheets are soft against Trixie’s skin that feels like it’s blistering in the heat of the room - it’s air conditioned but Trixie can’t detect a difference - and Katya’s body that’s pressed against hers from head to toe.

Katya’s sprawled across her enticingly, has one of her legs slotted between Trixie’s that are tightening, dragging Katya in closer. She brackets Trixie in with her arms, brushes across Trixie’s eyebrows that are furrowing in concentration with the pads of her thumbs.

The frown upon Trixie’s face softens, and it draws a satisfied hum from Katya’s lips that are already trailing down past Trixie’s ear, to her jaw and then her neck. Trixie can’t help her hands that are traveling on their own accord, scratching at Katya’s back that’s rippling every time she pushes herself up on her biceps.

They’re bulging deliciously, and Trixie can see the veins in them that stretch all the way from the pulse point in her neck and down to her wrists that are bony and athletic. Trixie wants to graze her teeth across them, and does so when Katya’s opening Trixie’s mouth with two fingers, encouraging Trixie to take them in.

She does so, sucks on them with heavy lidded eyes that are already half closed because of Katya’s thigh that’s pressing into her, causing her wetness to drip down onto her bed sheets.

It turns them a darker colour in certain splotches, and Trixie thinks that she’d be embarrassed if it wasn’t for the gleeful grin that takes over Katya’s face when Trixie’s hips stutter as she pulls her leg away. She throws it across Trixie’s waist, drags her own core up Trixie’s pillowy stomach that’s curled into rolls from the position that she’s laid in, with its mountains and rivers for Katya fo hike across.

Trixie’s hands have made their way up once again, to Katya’s hair. She weaves her fingers between the frizzing blonde strands, and tugs, hitches Katya back up to face level, albeit begrudgingly.

“I ‘wanna eat you out-“. Katya breathes against Trixie’s lips.

“- _Please_ let me eat you out”.

Nodding her head, Trixie feels herself grow dizzy. Katya’s lips are back on her own, kissing her like Trixie’s the last drop of water left in the only well for miles. Trixie feels wanted, needed, and is groaning into hers and Katya’s kiss that only ends when Katya pushes herself up, begins trailing kisses across Trixie’s breasts.

“Yes-“. Trixie exhales. “- _Yeah_ ”.

Katya nips at the skin of Trixie’s breasts, drags her teeth across the tender undersides of them before she’s taking her right nipple into her mouth, pinching the other between her thumb and forefinger.

It has Trixie searching for any ounce of friction that she can find, by squeezing her thighs together or pushing her hips down further into the bed that cups her spine dreamily. Katya doesn’t seem to notice - or she notices and chooses not to pay it any attention - whilst she’s sucking marks onto the narrowest part of Trixie’s waist, crawling down the length of Trixie’s body until she’s nestled between her thighs.

She looks up at Trixie with eyes that are wide, seeking for Trixie’s consent that she already has. Trixie blinks dumbly, brings her hand down from where it’s clutching at the pillow beneath her head to stroke at Katya’s cheek.

Katya leans into her touch easily, rests her head against Trixie’s thigh; her legs are bent at the knees with her feet pressed flat to the bed so that Katya has the space that she needs. Katya’s lips press once to the rose coloured stretch marks that adorn the crease where Trixie’s thigh meets her pelvis, and Trixie’s blushing intensely.

She knows Katya can see right through her.

“Tell me you want this-“. Katya hooks her arms under Trixie’s thighs. “- _Tell me_ , Trixie”.

Her breath ghosts across Trixie’s folds, her lips, her clit that’s throbbing with a more apparent desire than she’s ever known. Katya’s refusing to divert her gaze that’s burning directly through Trixie’s skull, and Trixie thinks that she’s going to lose her mind if Katya doesn’t put her mouth on her soon, make her come like she’s been needing to for days.

It’s why she’s nodding her head once again, locking her hands behind Katya’s head and tugging, pulling her closer.

“I want-“.

Trixie isn’t able to wrap up her words.

Katya’s lapping her tongue up and down Trixie’s folds, gathering the wetness that’s leaking down onto the bed sheets and dragging it up to her clit. She circles it gently, wraps her lips around it when Trixie’s hips buck up into her touch. She sucks rhythmically, halts to blow cool air on the sensitive skin whenever Trixie’s eyes flutter closed due to the pleasure that’s coursing through the entirety of her body.

She starts up again when Trixie forces her eyes open, and smirks into Trixie’s heat that’s sweet, sticky, coating her tongue and her lips and her chin. She feels like she’s suffocating in everything Trixie; her thighs that are clamping around her head and her hands that remain woven at the back of her neck.

Katya loves it.

Trixie’s moaning openly - she’s already close and on edge, it’s been minutes - and is whimpering brokenly when Katya drops one hand, slips two fingers inside of Trixie.

Her walls clench around them, and Trixie’s breaking eye contact again when Katya curls her fingers, hooks them against the one spot inside of Trixie that sends chills down her spine and puts tears in her eyes.

She can feel herself getting closer, teetering on the spring board that Katya’s in control of with her mouth and her hands. She’s ready for Katya to send her toppling, into the depths of the waters of orgasm that she needs to sip, drink down until she’s full.

“I’m so close”. Trixie huffs through her nose.

She is, she can feel all of the nerves in her body sparking to life, electrocuting her each and every pore that she can feel opening, pouring with sweat. Katya can tell - Trixie knows that she can - and is nodding her head reverently, picking up the pace of her movements that have slowed in her awe struck state.

“What d’you need?-“. Katya lifts her mouth from Trixie’s clit, inhales raggedly.

“-Come on, _god_ ”.

Trixie can feel the tears that have been gathering in her eyes pooling out of them, running down her temples and into her hair that’s damp with sweat. She has one hand still holding Katya’s neck, and is sucking her index and middle finger of the other.

She retracts them at Katya’s words - they’re coated in her own spit, wrinkling because of it - and trails them down to her right nipple. She pinches, twists, and hisses from the pain that she’s inflicting on herself.

“I need-“. Trixie gasps, pats Katya’s cheek numbly.

“- _Harder_ ”.

Katya listens.

She pulls and pushes her fingers harder in and out of Trixie’s sopping tightness - she’s clenching so hard that Katya’s left wondering how she hasn’t come yet - until she’s fucking her thoroughly. Trixie’s stomach bounces with the movements, her body shunting up the bed each time that Katya jams her fingers back in, feels them catch on Trixie’s entrance; her muscles fluttering.

Katya wraps her lips back around Trixie’s clit, because she wants to see Trixie come like she deserves, now, on her lips and around her fingers that she’s sorted to moving up and down, rather than in and out like Trixie had become accustomed to.

It’s a new wave of sensations, and Trixie’s panting harder, lifting her legs in order to dig her heels into Katya’s back that’s dripping with sweat, flexing tirelessly.

“You’re ‘gonna make me come-“. Trixie whines.

“-Fuck, _Katya_ , you’re gonna make me come”.

Her rambles spur Katya on further, and seconds later Trixie’s coming like she said she would, hard around Katya’s fingers and on her lips that are swollen from kissing Trixie’s cheeks, her lips, her clit.

She tilts her head back, allows herself to scrunch up her eyes and pull harder at Katya’s hair - Trixie briefly wonders if she’s hurting Katya at all - until Katya’s halting her licks, her persistent sucking.

“Oh my god”. Trixie feels lost.

Katya’s crawling back up Trixie’s body, her two fingers still resting stationary inside of her with her walls clenching sporadically. It has Katya grinning, and she’s allowing Trixie to pull her in for a kiss that’s messy, sloppy, everything that she predicted it would be when Trixie was moaning her name, blasting it akin to a stereo throughout the whole house.

Trixie pulls away due to lack of breath, inhales deeply when Katya picks up the movements of her fingers once again, her face now buried in the crook of Trixie’s neck. Trixie looks up towards the ceiling with wide eyes, but Katya’s chuckling knowingly, pecking at Trixie’s chin.

“You didn’t think I’d tease you for this long and just make you come once, did ‘ya?”.

Trixie simply shrugs, dives into _Katya_.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trixie: Are you there
> 
> Trixie: This is crisis part two
> 
> Pearl: I’m here! What’s up dude? Anything wrong?
> 
> Trixie: Ok so not to be dramatic but
> 
> Trixie: I think I’m in love
> 
> Trixie: That’s not an exaggeration this time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! it’s been about a century and a half since i last updated, but this chapter decided to be hell for me to write, and i have no good reason why. i’m not entirely happy with it but i know if i don’t get it out now i’ll dwell on it for the next ten years.
> 
> with that said, i do still love this fic to death and hope you enjoy this! there won’t be as long of a wait until the next ch. is up! this ch. and the next are both the calm before the storm if you will, so know that there’s some minor angst coming after all of this fluff. 
> 
> side note, read the updated tags!! there’s period sex involved in this part. it’s nothing graphic at all, but the warnings here just in case. 
> 
> let me know your thoughts!<3

They adapt to a routine of unexpected domesticity that Trixie becomes just a little too comfortable with.

She awakens with the sunrise each morning, to the sound of the birds outside of her bedroom window that balance on the branches of the elm in the backyard, and to the feeling of silk sheets wrapped around her limbs. The rays of said sun blast through her sheer curtains, into her eyes that have to blink rapidly in order to adjust to the new found light, and she’s left nestling herself closer to the body that sleeps akin to a log next to her.

 _Katya_.

Trixie doesn’t quite understand it, still doesn’t quite understand _her_. The way that she will talk to Trixie like she’s one of her closest friends while her siblings are in the room, then flick a switch as soon as they’re alone once again. She treats Trixie better than any almost girlfriend or short term lover that she’s ever had, respects her on levels that transcend friendship, Trixie knows.

She talks to Trixie about her day, asks her questions that Trixie’s always yearned to be asked if they don’t spend the day together, or half of it if Dylan and Riley have been particularly troublesome. Her eyes light up in blossoms of fluorescence whenever Trixie answers - Trixie knows that hers do, too - and her hands are constantly magnetised to the planes of Trixie’s body.

The tips of her fingers ghost against Trixie’s knuckles, tickle the palms of her hands that often scrunch up when she mutters expressively, as do the corners of her eyes that Katya kisses when she giggles sometimes.

Trixie lets her do it; she takes comfort in finding a home in Katya that she’d never been able to locate in the grandeur of her childhood home, with its high ceilings and two unused bedrooms that dwarf her. Katya succeeds in calming her in the summer heat that burns at her skin, reassures Trixie whenever she starts peeling away in shreds of self doubt and uncertainty until she’s down to the brittle bones beneath her flesh.

It’s why she allows Katya to start keeping an ash tray in the top drawer of her bedside table, makes her take it out to dumb the butts of her cigarettes in when she smokes in Trixie’s bed. Trixie leaves the bay window of her bedroom wide open for her, even resorts to shotgunning a puff or two from Katya when she’s bleary eyed and stuck in a post sex stupor.

She thinks it’s one of the things that she’s grown most fond of.

Along with harnessing the talent that Trixie knows it takes to console her overactive mind, Katya’s able to fuck her in which ever way she sees fit. She eats Trixie out heartily at the ends of long days, has Trixie coming against her tongue quicker than anybody has ever succeeded in achieving, and knows that Trixie appreciates it when she pulls her up, returns the favour zealously, her fingers trembling with after shocks.

Trixie doesn’t understand it at all - she admits it to herself when she admits it to Raina on a bleak Sunday night - and vows to solve the equation that is _Katya_.

Raina thinks that she already has; she tells Trixie about how she’d caught on to the blatant attraction that glues them together before Trixie had merely managed to remember Katya’s name, how Trixie is blind to her own amour towards Katya. Trixie thinks that it’s stupid, initially, until she’s waking up the following morning to an empty bed and a knotting in her stomach.

It’s less butterflies and more wasps, stinging at her body and allowing in the guards that are armed with daggers. They dig themselves deep, deeper, so that Trixie’s dragging herself out of bed before she’s fully awake, trekking to her bathroom that feels further away than it ever has.

Miles stand between her and the room with the frigid tiles that nip at the soles of her feet, though she crosses them quickly with a hand braced on her churning stomach. She feels out of it, she acknowledges - her mind is nestled between consciousness and the blissful ignorance of sleep - and braces herself against her bathroom sink with a huff.

Her hair is wild when she glances at herself briefly in the mirror, untamed from sleep and ruffled because of Katya’s hands that had been tugging at it the night before, with Trixie’s head clamped between her legs. She’s a sight for sore eyes; her lips are cracking and her skin is blanching, in contrast to the whites of her eyes that are tinted yellow from pain and exhaustion.

Trixie knows it’s the worst she’s looked in a long while, admittedly.

She grimaces, yanks open with bathroom cabinet above her head with more force than she had intended, and fishes out the essentials with her sluggish movements and drooping eyelids.

 _Wipes. Tampons. Painkillers_.

It’s a routine that she’s used to, overly familiar with, despite loathing it with every fibre of her being. She functions like clock work, flushes the toilet mechanically behind herself before she’s slumping back towards her bedroom.

She’s still far from being fully awake - she can tell from how her head feels like a rock sitting atop her shoulders, her legs that move on their own accord - though ensures that she checks the bedding that’s white, of all colours. Trixie curses herself aloud; she’d slept naked, unbothered as Katya had wrapped herself around her body, lulled Trixie to sleep with her rambles of her plans for the following day.

It had been careless, she knows. Her period comes on the final day of each month, most of the time - she’s always been regular, hates her anatomy for it just a little - and is reminded that this July is no different when she spots the dreaded stains littered across her thin duvet.

There’s not much, merely a splotch or two where the material had gathered in the crease between her thighs, and Trixie’s thanking all of the gods that she’s never believed in before and never will again when she realises that she’ll only have one sheet to change.

The realisation doesn’t stop her from groaning aloud for the second time - the clock on her bedside table tells her it’s barely seven in the morning - as her body longs to cocoon itself back in the silky blankets, drift back into a peaceful slumber as the painkillers that she’d swallowed with disgustingly lukewarm tap water begin tackling the hell thats chiseling away in her stomach.

She strips away the duvet cover with ease, though her arms feel like deadweights dangling at each side of her body, and bundles it into her laundry basket that sits in the corner of her bathroom.

Trixie doesn’t care for putting on a new one; she thinks it’s just about pointless when she knows that she’s bound to be washing the remainder of her bed sheets in the coming days regardless - they haven’t been changed for almost a week and a half - and settles on leaving the duvet bare.

She pulls on an old sweatshirt of Katya’s when she registers that she’s still stood naked, shivering in the cool breeze of the morning, along with a pair of her own panties; she knows she’d never fit into Katya’s. The black of the loosely fitted sweatshirt hangs to her hips, though leaves a slither of her green panties peaking out beneath it.

It’s a questionable choice, but Trixie can’t find it within herself to care when she’s stepping back into her room from the bathroom to find Katya herself perched on the end of her bed, her hair swooping down onto her forehead. She’s sat with her legs crossed, fingers tapping away at the screen of her phone that reflects against the sheen of her eyes and illuminates the contours or her face. Trixie’s padding across the room to stand in front of her, stepping stepping stepping.

Trixie’s heart is a bass drum in her chest.

Katya glances up at her as soon as she hears the floorboards creek, and is discarding her phone, dropping it onto the dip in the bed next to her. She scrutinises Trixie’s slumped posture, frowns when Trixie merely smiles tentatively, wraps her arms protectively around her middle.

The position causes her - or _Katya’s_ \- sweatshirt to rise further, so that the skin of her lower stomach becomes visible and her breasts are pushed up to her chin, almost. She thinks that Katya’s gaze is going to divert, but she’s proven wrong when Katya stands, crowds into Trixie’s space so that Trixie’s able to smell the coffee on her breath and the citrus in her hair.

It’s rousing, and Trixie feels her stomach twist.

Her cramps aren’t bad. Sometimes they’re worse, on other occasions she doesn’t get them at all - it’s a miracle in itself - but she’s far from comfortable when she’s shrinking under Katya’s glare, cowering in embarrassment.

“Hey-“. Katya exhales, loops one arm around Trixie’s waist. She pulls their bodies closer together, so that Trixie’s tender breasts are pressed against her own through the sheer material of her tank top. Their hips bump against one and others too, and the dull pain has Trixie whimpering, ducking her head in aversion.

“-You’re up early”. Katya proceeds.

Trixie _is_.

Katya doesn’t think she’s ever seen her pull herself from the house she’s built for herself in her bed before nine, at the earliest. Trixie likes to burrow herself into her stacks of pillows, finds solace in drifting in and out of a slumber as Katya busies herself with cooking Raina and the boys breakfast, ensuring that they’re clothed and prepared for whatever activity she has planned for the day.

It’s why Katya’s perplexed when Trixie relents and nods her head, sinks into Katya’s hand that’s planted on her waist.

“I was just _uh_ \- changing the sheets”. She murmurs.

“At seven thirty?”.

Trixie feels stupid. She knows that periods are nothing to be ashamed of - she’s known since she had been the first person in her grade to her hers - though is unable to remind her overtired brain of the fact when Katya’s blinking slowly, questioningly.

It’s early in the morning, and Trixie’s mind is acting nothing short of irrational in front of Katya. She’s reeling from the knowledge that Katya’s above all of her concerns, sits proudly and with an energised elegance atop of Trixie’s worries that are pouring out of her in droplets of sweat that bead at her temples.

Periods don’t scare Katya. Humanity doesn’t terrify her like it shakes Trixie to the core of her existence, and Trixie knows that Katya’s intuition has already clicked when a blush rises to her cheeks.

“Yeah”.

“ _Trixie_ ”.

Katya’s voice is soft, soothing, and it has Trixie tangling her fingers in the fabric of Katya’s tank top, scrunching it up in her fists. She pulls the material downwards, until she can see Katya’s collar bones jutting out from beneath her skin. Trixie gulps, shrugs her shoulders nonchalantly as Katya loops her other arm around Trixie’s waist, threads her fingers together at the small of Trixie’s back.  
  
“Just, y’know, periods”.

Trixie visibly deflates. Her stomach is still quavering, the shooting aches fluctuating between white hot singes and monotonous waves of bearable pain, but Katya’s keeping eyes trained on her. They’re full of nothing but understanding, because she knows how awful periods can be, how much they can debilitate ones mood for hours, _days_.

Nodding her head, Katya smiles empathetically.

“Are you feelin’ alright?”.

Trixie’s not, but thinks that she will be.

“A little achy, but, it’s whatever”.

It’s not whatever, either. She feels like she might cry, but also like she might fall asleep before she makes it to her bed, at this rate. It’s not out of the ordinary for her - she once spent an entire three days curled up on the futon in her college dorm room because her bed smelt too much like the fabric softener that reminded her of her grandmothers house - though she hasn’t felt as on edge, as fragile since.

“Sure?”. Katya checks.

Trixie doesn’t have a reply in mind. She toys between _yes_ and _no_ and _shut up_ , contemplates Katya to leave when her eyes cross from their close proximity. It’s not what Trixie wants, but the emotions that Katya’s projecting are radiating right through to her lungs, causing her breath to hitch in her chest.

“Mhm-“. She diverts.

Katya’s not satisfied with her response and Trixie knows it, from the way that Katya cocks her left eyebrow - the one that’s slightly off kilter from the other - and presses her fingers deeper into the sweater clad skin of Trixie’s back. It causes goosebumps to arise across her arms, allows her to pin point the gurgles that are rippling in her gut.

“-Did you make pancakes?”.

Chuckling brazenly, Katya hums. The knowledge has Trixie’s tastebuds watering, her tongue licking across her top lip that’s dried out from sleep and lack of lip balm. She wants to slather them in Vaseline, thinks that she will when she showers eventually, in her lavender shower gel and strawberry conditioner.

“Of course I did”. Katya reaffirms.

Trixie already knew. She’s been able to smell them cooking since she awoke, stumbled to the bathroom with the scent of freshly baked goods infiltrating her nostrils.

Katya cooks them most mornings, scrambles eggs and butters toast that she often burns with raspberry jam. She sets them onto the rainbow rimmed white plates that are stored in the bottom cupboard of the kitchen - Trixie’s father has owned them for years - and sets them down onto the dining table for the boys, Raina, Trixie.

The pancakes are always rich, coated in syrup, and Trixie’s salivating with the ghost of the taste of them on the top of her tongue.

“Can you maybe, bring some up to me? I ‘wanna stay in bed for a while”. She asks.

Katya’s looking at her like she didn’t have to ask, as if she knew Trixie would want some of them, ladened with extra fruit; bananas and blueberries and blackberries. Trixie can imagine the juice dripping around her lips, and seeds from the berries getting stuck in her teeth so that she has to dig them out with the tip of her tongue, wash everything down with hearty gulps of freshly squeezed orange.

Pursing her lips, Katya counters her query.

“Why don’t you take a hot shower first, and then I’ll bring some up to you in say, ten minutes?”. Katya offers. Her expression is hopeful - though she’s certain that Trixie will accept - and she follows her hands from the base of Trixie’s spine up to her shoulders, massages her hands into the tense joints when she reaches them.

Katya’s treating Trixie like she’s going to break, shatter onto the wooden floor of Trixie’s bedroom into shards and fragments of vulnerability that she hasn’t been able to defect in Trixie, before. Trixie doesn’t know how to take it; she feels protected and loved, wanted and adored, and blinks her eyes as rapidly as her torpor state allows.

“Would that be ok?”.

Katya simply chuckles.

“That’s fine, baby. I need to drag your sister out of bed and make sure your brothers haven’t trashed the kitchen while I’ve been gone-“. She pauses to chuckle further.

“-They’ll be out all day today so-“. Katya trails off, though Trixie’s not listening.

 _Baby_. It catches her off guard, sends her trail of thought that was coherent to begin with into free fall. Katya’s called her a myriad of things throughout the summer so far - _stupid, idiot, brat,_ even _beautiful_ when she had been fucking her with her tongue and three fingers, blessing Trixie with rivets of pleasure - but never _baby_.

She stands unmoving, mute until Katya’s words register. They’re out all day.

“The whole day?”.

“Well, the boys will be back at seven, I think, and Raina’s staying at Tee’s. Tee’s?”.

“ _Tee’s_ ”. Trixie confirms. _Tee_ has been Raina’s closest friend since kindergarten - there had only been ten of them in their grade - and Trixie’s never liked her until she realises that Tee is doing her the favour of her life. She begins grinning wildly, despite her headiness from the painkiller that’s attacking the source of pain in her core, and ducks her head so that she’s eye level with Katya.

“So I can stay in bed all day?”. She asks.

Her grin feels like it’s splitting up towards her cheeks, through her hairline and to the back of her skull, but Katya’s nodding her head tangling her fingers in the curly and wispy hairs at the base of Trixie’s neck. Trixie leans into her touch - her nose is almost brushing up against Katya’s - and shifts her weight from one foot to the other.

“Totally-“. Beams Katya. “-I’ll come and join you once they’re gone, yeah?”.

She runs everything past Trixie, ensures that Trixie is entirely comfortable before she pursues anything, nudges the tip of her nose nose against Trixie’s. It causes Trixie to jump. Katya’s skin is cold, and she can imagine that Katya’s hands would be too if she hadn’t defrosted them against the fabric of her sweater that’s stretched across Trixie’s breasts.

Trixie allows her grin to transform into a contented, soft smile, and unwinds her hands from Katya’s tank top to cup her presumably freshly washed face that’s tiny in Trixie’s palms.

Katya takes a step backwards as Trixie whispers _yes_ , pulls Trixie’s head down to her height so that she’s able to kiss her forehead. It’s featherlight, and Trixie chases after the caress that has her heart thumping, threatening to jump out of her rib cage.

She drops her hand from Katya as she feels the imaginary arms of her bed pulling her under the covers, and watches Katya with a knowing observance as she exists the room, tip toes on bare feet down the corridor towards Raina’s room. Trixie relaxes, then, pulls her bare duvet across her body, and groans outwardly into the pillow beneath her head.

Trixie doesn’t think she’s ever been more figuratively and literally fucked; Katya’s a deviant, though is soft and caring and everything that Trixie’s never seen amalgamated into one existence that baffles her, has her scrunching her eyes up in frustration. She’s an enigma, Trixie thinks, of stupidity and wonder, sensuality and defiance that’s driving Trixie to think thoughts that she’s never dared to entertain.

It’s maddening, and Trixie _loves_ it.

*****

Trixie drags herself to her shower after wallowing in the depths of her bed for a little over ten minutes.

She douses her body in her usual lavender shower gel - it’s beginning to run out and she makes a note to drive to the nearest town to purchase more as soon as she’s able to - and washes her hair with a shampoo and conditioner that Katya had left behind.

They both smell of citrus, and she lathers them into her scalp before allowing the water to wash it away, down the drain that clogs with suds. She wrings her hair of excess water, braids it into two french braids in the mirror of her bathroom before she clothes herself once again, still in Katya’s sweatshirt and her admittedly horrifically ugly green panties.

She eats the pancakes that Katya’s left on a chipped plate at the end of her bed, and falls asleep nestled in the cool, air conditioned sheets once she swallows the last dregs of juice from her glass.

It’s a peaceful slumber, drawn out slumber, and she wakes up to Katya hours later, slipping herself into the bed next to her. She’s warm, compared to earlier, and smells like the cologne that Trixie knows to be the one that Katya spritzes herself with after her daily bath or shower, behind her ears and on the insides of her wrists.

She’s dressed in her favourite sweat pants - dark grey ones that Trixie knows that she’s had since her senior year of high school - and a black bra. The straps of said bra dig noticeably into her shoulders, and trixie wants to peel them away for her the instant that she notices, pepper the indentations with soothing kisses and gentle whispers.

“What time is it?”. She grumbles instead, rotating her body to face Katya.

Katya casts her gaze towards the clock on the bedside table, encourages Trixie to drape her body along the length of her own. Trixie does so, hooks one arm and leg across Katya’s form so that her stomach, thighs, breasts are pressed against the strong pane of her side.

“A little after ten-“. Katya hums, nuzzles her head into Trixie’s hair that’s still slightly damp from her earlier shower.

“-The kids are gone”.

She sounds relieved, and Trixie knows that she is because she is too, when she sights gratefully into Katya’s neck, places the lightest kiss that she can muster against her pulse point that’s bobbing with every breath that Katya takes. Trixie burrows herself further into Katya’s side as Katya loops an arm around Trixie’s waist, her other occupied with tucking Trixie’s stray baby hairs that have fallen out of her braids back behind her ears.

Trixie keens, mewls into Katya’s ear at the feeling of her breasts that are swollen, tender, pressing into the muscle of Katya’s bicep. They ache deliciously - Trixie wants to kick herself for the insatiable desire that always runs rampant around her body when she’s on her period - and yearn for Katya’s fingers to grope them, tickle at the undersides.

She spreads her thighs further at the low groan that Katya releases when Trixie’s hand claws up the expanse of her stomach, up to her breasts that are heaving beneath her satin bra. Trixie slots her thigh between both of Katya’s, then, so that her pelvis is gyrating against Katya’s jagged hip bone through Trixie’s cotton panties and Katya’s polyester sweats.

Trixie feels delirious, still dazed from sleep.

Her cramps have mostly worn off. She’s left feeling dizzy, at peace with the serenity that blankets them akin to the silk sheets beneath her sweating skin, and revels in the intoxicating pressure that Katya’s hip is exerting on her groin.

“Comfy?”. Katya’s face is painted with a smirk - Trixie thinks she has every right to gloat - and she slips one hand from Trixie’s hair, coasts it down her body so that it’s balanced on the defined curve of Trixie’s waist.

“Very”.

“Yeah?”. She teases.

“ _Mhm_ ”.

Katya’s leaning down as Trixie surges her upper body to meet Katya’s lips, her sensitive, puffy nipples hardening beneath her sweater - Katya’s sweater that Katya finds enthralling on Trixie’s fuller figure - and Trixie’s mind is blank.

She can’t locate her train of thought that’s ridden off of the tracks, into the ditch that is her obsession with Katya, and Katya’s body that’s so taught compared to her own. It has Trixie walking the tracks alone, without direction, grinding her hips against Katya’s hip bone as Katya’s hand slips into the back of Trixie’s underwear.

Her hand palms at Trixie’s ass, but Trixie’s whimpering reluctantly, shaking her head _no_ despite the coil that’s already beginning to tighten in her core thanks to the movements of her body that betrays her words.

“Katya, don’t, I feel gross”. She whispers.

Trixie’s hips continue their thrusting regardless.

Katya chuckles lowly, pulls Trixie closer so that she’s grinding more on Katya’s thigh than she is her hip bone. It’s softer, suppler, and means that Trixie’s able to clamp her legs as she wishes, trap the strength of Katya’s muscle between her own that are trembling, quivering beneath Katya’s fingertips that are ghosting across them, tapping occasionally.

Trixie gasps audibly, whimpers louder as Katya squeezes at her ass, pinches the crease where it meets Trixie’s thick thigh. She can feel herself letting go of the reigns that she so often insists on keeping ahold of, with Katya’s mumbled words of encouragements that are filthy, demeaning.

“You’re far from gross”.

Trixie keens in defeat - because she wants it, she swears she wants it - and allows Katya to keep kissing at her forehead, her cheeks, lips. They’re swollen beneath Katya’s touch, much like her breasts, and Trixie can feel the effects of Katya’s affections shooting directly to her clit that’s covered with the cotton of her underwear.

It makes for an extra ounce of friction that Trixie’s searching for as she perseveres, flutters her eyes closed so that she’s able to concentrate all of her focus on the feeling that’s budding rapidly between her legs, akin to the sun outside of her bedroom window that’s still streaming in forcefully.

Katya squeezes at her ass throughout, kisses Trixie with vigour as Trixie comes easily, her thighs clenching at Katya’s and her nipples piercing into the skin of Katya’s arm from how hard they’ve gotten, puckered painfully.

She comes down slowly, a trickle of water migrating from one end of a pipe to the next, and buries her head into the crook of Katya’s neck.

“Shit”. Trixie mumbles, her nails digging into the sunburnt skin of Katya’s waist.

“Ok?”. Katya’s eyes are wide, her bottom lip worried between her teeth as she eyes Trixie cautiously. She looks peaceful, relaxed - her expression screams _happy_  - but her position has shifted, and her body appears more tense than Katya thinks she’s ever seen it. It’s a sight that panics her, initially, but then Trixie’s nodding her head, grinning gleefully up at Katya with her crooked teeth and chapstick coated lips.

“Yeah, god-“. Trixie huffs. “-That was _intense_ ”.

Her forehead is prickled with sweat even in the cool room - the windows open wide so that Katya can smoke if she so wishes to - and Katya lifts her hand to brush the beads of perspiration away, back into Trixie’s hairline.

“That good?”. Katya’s voice is full of pride; Trixie doesn’t blame her, nobody’s ever managed to make her come as hard as Katya has, out of the nameless one night stands that she barely remembers and the handful of short term girlfriends that had left her seeking for more more more.

She’s still a little breathless, though hums affirmatively.

“I always come harder on my period”.

Katya beams in response, her eyes crinkling in what Trixie assumes is a lethal combination of aforementioned pride and a smugness that Trixie doesn’t think that Katya’s managed to drop since they’d first had sex, where Katya had made her come once, twice, or seven times.

Chuckling, Katya settles into the mattress once again.

“I’ll make a note of that”.

*****

Trixie lays awake in bed later that day.

Katya is downstairs, slaving over cooking the boys a meal as they wait patiently, or not so patiently, at the breakfast bar. She’s making burgers, apparently - has told Trixie that she’ll bring her up a vegetarian one once she’s seen to the boys, ensured that they’re settled in their rooms - with a side of fries that she likes to make from scratch.

Trixie’s mouth is already salivating at the idea, much like she was at the thought of Katya’s pancakes, and twists her phone that she’s holding in her hand in order to occupy herself.

She unlocks the screen, is informed that it’s a little past six in the evening, and opens her messages to the string of excited rambles that Raina had sent to her a number of days prior about one of her recently discovered fashion magazines. Trixie finds herself smiling subconsciously down at them, at the overly bright screen, and types out a short message that tells Raina to _enjoy her night._

Her fingers move on their own accord, then, click on Pearls contact that’s silently mocking her, chanting _Katya Katya Katya._

**Trixie: _Are you there_**

**Trixie: _This is crisis part two_**

**Pearl: _I’m here! What’s up dude? Anything wrong?_**

**Trixie: _Ok so not to be dramatic but_**

**Trixie: _I think I’m in love_**

**Trixie: _That’s not an exaggeration this time_**


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “-Je suis amoureuse de toi”.
> 
> Trixie’s breathing grows shaky, as does Katya’s, but they’re both grinning, and Katya’s squeezing Trixie’s frame tighter, nodding her head once again because yes, Trixie loves her, Trixie’s in love with her. She reciprocates Trixie’s feelings with every cell of her body that Trixie’s slotted herself in to, and she’s whispering it back to Trixie with a new found delicacy.
> 
> “You’re so, god-“. Katya stutters. “I know, Trix, I know. I’m in love with you too”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im not dead! welcome back to this shit show, it's been a while! 
> 
> life got hectic and this ch. was so hard for me to get out for some reason, but it's here! i hope you enjoy 6.5k words of fluff and character development! 
> 
> i just want to say as always, thank you to everybody who's supported me on this, all of the anons and kind comments, you're super appreciated and i hope you enjoy this one <3

August twenty eighth is a day that Trixie often erases from her calendar.

It’s a date that draws memories from days past that she’d rather repress, makes her reminisce on years that she’s long swept under the carpet of her adolescence. The knowledge of it approaching every year, religiously and like clock work, has her itching beneath the sheets of her bed that have never irritated her before.

They’re silk, but the fabric is coarse against her skin that’s aflame with red blotches and a prickled rash that she doesn’t care for.  
  
It’s too early in the morning for her to be acknowledging the calendar icon on her screen that’s beaming up at her, a bright Tuesday the twenty eighth etching itself into her brain, her blurring eyes. The neon green square next to it is illuminated too, with a red circle that tells her that she has nine unread messages; she knows without checking that the majority of them will be from Pearl.

She clicks on them with her brain chanting birthday birthday birthday, can already predict Pearl’s anticipated blunt congratulations on making it to your twenties, followed by a string of words that have sprung from an unrelated stream of consciousness. Trixie’s proven right when the bubbles flood her screen, and she’s forced to acclimate her eyesight to the overwhelming reflection of said screen.

**Pearl: This is my obligatory happy 20th text**

**Pearl: I know you hate birthdays but I hope you get the sex that you deserve today**

**Pearl: I bet you’re fucking right now aren’t you**

**Pearl: I’m actually getting ignored by my best friend because she’s getting railed**

**Pearl: God damn it Trixie you’re less entertaining than these renaissance books that I’ve read twice since the start of summer already**

**Pearl: TWICE Brooklyn is going to be the death of me**

The messages from Pearl were sent a little past midnight, and total to seven, the other two coming from the college group chats. She doesn’t dare check social media, knows that the instant she does she’ll be bombarded with notifications that she doesn’t care for, and instead focuses on laughing mutely, typing out her replies to Pearl.

She snickers silently at Pearls assumptions as she does so, and flickers her gaze to the right where Katya’s laid still sound asleep, her arm draped loose and limp across Trixie’s stomach. She’s snoring gently, and Trixie tells herself that she has every right to when she lifts her eyes to the minute clock on her phone.

It reads five thirty in the morning - Trixie hasn’t awoken before seven all summer - and the fact is confirmed by the darkness that’s still blanketing the room. The sun is still yet to rise, but Trixie’s content when she rolls to her side, feels Katya shuffle further into her embrace.

**Trixie: You’re right I hate them but thank you**

**Trixie: And I wish we were fucking but sadly she’s still asleep and doesn’t seem to be waking up to rail me anytime soon**

**Trixie: Stay strong, we’ll both be back in Chicago in a month!! If I can survive Wisconsin then you can put up with Brooklyn**

_We’ll both be back in Chicago in a month._  
  
It's not a thought that settles Trixie. It’s daunting, almost, to know and understand that her perspective has flipped since the beginning of summer, turned on its head in a one-eighty formation. She no longer dreads waking each morning, stumbling down the stairs and into the kitchen where her siblings sit congregated at the breakfast bar, plates of food that Katya had prepared for them being demolished.    

Trixie can envision the stacks of pancakes waiting for her, dripping with syrup or honey, and doesn’t believe that she’s prepared herself enough to have to return to eating cereal out of box, drinking the milk separately because the heavens know that she’s not the most adequate cook.  
  
She’s burnt every muffin, every cookie that she’s ever attempted to make - Katya enjoys teasing her about it more than she cares to admit to - and isn’t willing to resign herself to that when she knows that she has aforementioned Katya at her side, tending to Trixie like the lover that she’s told herself she will be for as long as Trixie will have her:   
  
And Trixie wants her for a while.   
  
Lifting her phone, Trixie reads the new messages that Pearl has sent through, allows her thoughts to drift as she feels Katya huff out a breath against the bare skin of her shoulder.   
  
The warm air makes Trixie shiver, and she doesn’t retribute herself for hoping that Raina and the boys are still sleeping - She has no doubt that they will be, it hasn’t even reached six o’clock yet - because her thighs are already clenching, her mouth already watering and curling into a silent giggle as she takes in Pearls words.   
  
All previous thoughts are pushed to the corners of her mind.   
  
**Pearl: I’m surprised you haven’t jumped her bones already  
  
Pearl: God I can’t wait to suffer through hours of inevitable stories about this girl  
  
Pearl: Do you know what’s going to happen after summer yet?**   
  
Trixie knows what Pearl is insinuating without even scratching at her consciousness, and curses the universe momentarily for gifting her with friends that know what she’s thinking without having to utter a word, across state borders and through the radio waves to her phone.   
  
She knows that it’s stupid, and that Pearl is merely connecting the bold, apparent dots, but Trixie’s downtrodden, disbelieving, and sends a blunt message back to Pearl that states the only thought that she can distinguished amidst the train wreck that is her mind.   
  
**Trixie: Too early, don’t try it**   
  
_Too early.  
_   
It’s both too early in the morning, too early in Trixie’s understanding of their relationship - she doubts labelling it as such - and way too early in the summer; there’s less than a month left. She wants August to stretch out until the winter, or maybe the following spring, so that herself and Katya are able to establish the foundations before building up the bricks and mortar.   
  
She knows that they won’t, that the mere thought is unrealistic - her father is due back in less than two weeks which means that she’ll have to start packing up her suitcase soon - and curls in on herself, tucks her head down so that her chin rests atop of the mess of curls covering Katya’s forehead.   
  
Throwing her phone to the bottom of the bed when she feels it vibrate with what she assumes is a response from Pearl, Trixie rolls her eyes. She’s being petulant and she knows it, can’t help but feel as if she’s retreated to the ways of her younger self that would have been out of bed by now, busying herself with aimless chores in order to avoid the feelings that curse throughout her mind and body and refuse to quell no matter how she shoves them, hacks at them with clenched fists.   
  
Trixie prides herself in staying put, and is grateful for the stars aligning moments later when Katya sniffles, blinks open her eyes to meet Trixie’s. she’s startled, though quickly relaxes into Trixie’s embrace, hooks her leg across both of Trixie’s. her arm tightens around Trixie’s waist too, and Trixie’s left grinning, puckering her lips and pressing them onto the crease that’s appeared between Katya’s brows.   
  
Katya rises with ease most days, the blur that clouds her pupils and distorts her vision, vanishing with slow, trance like blinks. On others, she allows herself to bask in the quiescent atmosphere that settles only whilst Raina and the boys are still asleep, out of sight and mostly out of mind with Trixie at her side. It’s peaceful, relaxing and calm, and she seeks to revel in it before it’s yanked away by the hands of the clock that tick over to the next hour.   
  
It’s one of the latter mornings.   
  
The sun rises brightly along with Katya, and Trixie mumbles into her cheek with every exhale, each inhale that catches in the back of her throat with the way that Katya’s hair tickles at her nose.   
  
Trixie’s heart clenches pitifully, as does her chest that she can feel fluttering when Katya’s lips spread into a wide grin. It reveals all of her teeth, sparkling white - Trixie’s envious of them compared to her own, all crooked albeit almost as white as Katya’s - and finds herself mumbling a good morning that comes out both squeaky and choked.   
  
“Hm, mornin’”. Katya responds.   
  
She huffs out a yawn, pulls herself closer to Trixie with the leverage that she’s gained from having hooked her leg across Trixie’s waist. Trixie allows her to do so, and shifts herself so that she’s facing Katya, her arm tucked beneath her pillows. Katya grins further as Trixie’s free arm loops back around her waist, their chests pressed together through the thin shirts that they’re both clothed in, and the even thinner bed sheet that’s weaved it’s way in between their bodies.   
  
It’s irritating - Trixie still doesn’t understand why the normally comforting silk sheets are itching at her skin so much - but Katya’s there, breathing into the crook of Trixie’s neck, already dragging her lips and teeth across Trixie’s throbbing pulse point. Trixie giggles beneath the touch, and makes an admittedly half hearted attempt at tugging Katya’s head away by the roots of her hair with the free hand that Trixie has threaded in them.   
  
“Do you want me to stop?”. Katya snickers.   
  
She props herself up on her forearms so that she’s able to stare directly down into Trixie’s bleary brown eyes, and Trixie begins shaking her head in response, she doesn’t want Katya to stop at all, before her phone begins buzzing erratically at the end of the bed.   
  
Trixie huffs, sits up exasperatedly and sends Katya tumbling back into the dense mattress. They both laugh, but then Trixie’s phone is in her hand once again, and she’s settling back against Katya as she begins rehashing the sections of her conversation with Pearl that she feels comfortable enough with sharing; Katya can’t know it’s her birthday, she decides, can live with the entirety of the inevitable fuss being avoided.   
  
“Pearl sent me a bunch of dumb messages last night and ‘cause I didn’t answer her, she thought I was busy gettin’ fucked”. Trixie explains, points out two messages in particular to Katya’s curious orbs. Katya nods in understanding, snakes her hand beneath Trixie’s loose shirt, feels the goosebumps that arise on Trixie’s skin as her fingertips travel up to her breasts.   
  
“Well I mean, she wasn’t wrong”.   
  
“She also wasn’t entirely right”. Counters Trixie.   
  
“You were passed out by eleven because _apparently_ six orgasms was too much for you, Trixie”. Katya smirks.   
  
Trixie groans aloud, takes it upon herself to cover her face with the screen of her phone. The frigid glass of the screen presses against her nose, causes the tip of it to cool, and she’s left with her breath fogging it up when she pulls it away slightly. Katya chuckles knowingly at Trixie’s undignified response, and makes a noncommittal swipe for said phone that Trixie gives over with an ease that Katya’s come to expect; Katya often finds amusement in sending candid photos of Trixie to her college friends - Kim and pearl and Shea - sometimes Raina too.   
  
“Can I send somethin’ back to Pearl?”.   
  
“Sure-“. Trixie hums, rolls her eyes in adoration.

“-But mention anything about our sex life and I will not be held responsible for my actions”. Curling her tongue around her words, Trixie kicks away the bunched up silk sheets that have gathered at her feet, detaches herself from Katya so that she’s able to rest her knotted up spine against the cushion of the headboard.

Katya follows her.  
  
“What’re you ‘gonna do, hm? Spank me?-“. Katya teases, banters with ease.   
  
Trixie’s eyes widen significantly - she’s constantly baffled by Katya’s unfiltered ponderings, her streams of consciousness, quick witted remarks that are nothing but well intentioned - and she feels the blush that’s risen to her cheeks intensify. Craning her head back, feeling the muscles in her neck stretch and relax, Trixie crosses her legs at the ankles, right over left. Katya mirrors her in her own way that Trixie views perplexedly, contorts her shins beneath her thighs in a way that Trixie’s certain can’t be comfortable for her knees, her joints that she complains ache whenever she spends too long on her feet.

“-Oh no, wait, you’re too vanilla for that”. Katya continues her nonchalant taunts.

She knows that Katya’s right - doubts that she’ll never admit it - though doesn’t feel the shame that unknown sources tell her that she should, merely because she appreciates vanilla sex, seeks out pleasure that’s neither demanding or unpredictable, is everything that she associates with comfort and love. Trixie despises herself for the cliche that she can feel herself evolving into.  
  
“I’m not vanilla-“. Trixie sulks. “-I’m at least a strawberry swirl, or like, _maybe_ a raspberry ripple”.

Trixie knows that she’s adorned with sprinkles at best. She doesn’t care, it hasn’t proven to be an issue between herself and her previous hookups, herself and Katya, and she doesn’t think that it will be, not when Katya’s beyond content to fuck Trixie in every way that Trixie describes to her, and vise versa. It’s something that she’s more than fond of, the way that Katya’s so in tune with her reactions, is filled to the brim with intuition that pays off on most nights, or mornings when Trixie awakens to Katya’s hands already ghosting across her body; Katya’s never not made her come.

 _Hard_.

“We both know you’re probably caramel-”. Katya concurs, hands Trixie’s phone back to her, presents the string of messages that she’s sent off to Pearl.

“-But we also both know that I fuckin’ love caramel”. She adds as an afterthought, the last remaining fleck of coherence that she’s able to muster with Trixie’s consulting eyes already taking in the messages on the screen of her phone that’s ladened with fingerprints that weren’t there before.

**Trixie: Hi hello Brooklynite, it’s the elusive Katya coming at you from inside of Trixie’s.. Phone**

**Trixie: I can assure you that your dear friend will (most likely) be railed at some point today**

**Trixie: Make that a definitely, you know what she’s like**

“What am I like?”. Trixie intervenes, places her phone down onto the cluttered bedside table. Katya chuckles, but Trixie’s hand is already moving to rest high up on Katya’s thigh that’s muscles and tanned from the blistering summer sun. Trixie digs her short, manicured nails into the skin when Katya refuses to answer, keeps her lips zipped shut, sewn together with the threads of hesitation.

Glancing down at Trixie’s hand, Katya simply cocks an eyebrow. Trixie knows what she means without questioning her further, had known before she had asked if she’s honest with herself, and giggles playfully at the notion that Katya’s more than well acquainted with the fact that Trixie can’t get enough of her.

Trixie wants everything that Katya hands to her as well as everything that she doesn’t, needs Katya’s presence and her reflection, her past and her present that Trixie’s ready to delve into head first, if Katya will have her; Trixie thinks that she will. It’s jarring, how often she catches herself thinking about scenarios that have happened, along with ones that she’s concocted in the cauldron of her mind when Katya’s around. Even when she’s not, Trixie still feels her thoughts drifting subconsciously, the black and white film reels in her mind trailing on and on and on -

_and on._

“Happy birthday, by the way”. Katya breathes, lifts Trixie’s hand from her thigh in order to intertwine their fingers.

Trixie blinks dumbly. It’s her birthday - she knows it and loathes the connotations behind it - but Katya knows too, and Trixie furrows her eyebrows as to how and why. She hasn’t told Katya, can’t imagine Katya would have been able to work it out for herself without seeing Trixie’s disorganised calendar that she keeps tucked away in the drawer of her bedside table.   
  
She knows that her premonitions are irrational, and that she’s overreacting. It’s in Trixie’s nature to do so whenever she encounters an issue that she doesn’t care to work out how to solve most of the time, with her tendency to ignore the nagging in the back of her mind until it dwindles, naturally.   
  
It’s bad, and she knows that, too, but then Katya’s grinning at her, placing a flock of kisses to Trixie’s cheeks that give way to a soft simper when Katya’s breath tickles at the corners of her lips.   
  
“How did you-“. Trixie’s thoughts slot into place.   
  
“-You read Pearl’s messages, didn’t you?”.   
  
_Katya didn’t.  
_   
She shakes her head in response, reaches out to stay Trixie’s free hand that’s began fidgeting uncomfortably. Katya tugs on it lightly, ensures that she has most of Trixie’s attention before shuffling away from the headboard in order to sit directly in front of Trixie. Katya glances up towards her hopefully, regresses when Trixie shakes her head apologetically.   
  
“Raina told me”. Katya admits.   
  
“I’ll kill her”. Trixie laughs bitterly, despite allowing Katya to lift both of her hands to her mouth, litter kisses across her clenched knuckles. She smiles empathetically at Trixie’s strained expression, succeeds in causing her forehead to even itself out and her teeth to stop gnawing at the bitten insides of her cheeks. Katya lowers her hands once she’s certain that Trixie’s not going to retaliate further, and inhales raggedly.

“It’s your birthday, Trix”. Katya simpers.

Trixie doesn’t want it to be, and hopes vicariously that Katya will work out why from the indignant pessimism that she harbours in her eyes, the tension that has manifested itself in her tight shoulders, her stiff posture. She huffs when she acknowledges that Katya hasn’t, yet, and kicks her legs out straight in front of her sagging frame. They land either side of Katya, who tucks her hands beneath Trixie’s knees, taps at the undersides of them; it draws a lacklustre chuckle from Trixie’s chest.    
  
“I just-”. Trixie’s voice wavers.

“-I never celebrate it. It’s never been a priority, y’know? My dad was always away on some business trip and mom-”. Trixie gulps once again.

“-Mom’s been gone a long time”.   
  
Katya knows that she has. She doesn’t dare pretend to understand Trixie’s circumstances - she’s been fortunate enough to grow up surrounded by an extensive family - and settles for nodding her head once again. It’s more sympathy than empathy, but Katya treads delicately, places Trixie’s emotions on the mantle of her mind instead of sweeping them under the carpet of her heart like she’s beginning to believe that Trixie does, year after year, summer after summer.

It nags at her momentarily whilst she toys with her next words that are thus far undecided, still being mulled over meticulously. It’s not Katya’s intention to offend or harm - the flutters in her gut and her chest tell her to protect Trixie’s existence with all of the power that she’s able to harness from the universe - but she doesn’t know how to do so when Trixie looks so downtrodden, as if she was exasperated with the conversation at hand before it had even begun.

Katya kicks herself for her lack of observation, and settles for changing the subject.

“Listen-”. Softens Katya. “-I told the boys that we’re having a chilled day today. They’ll probably be out in the yard all day and I highly doubt Raina will leave her room”.

“And?”.

“We’re celebrating”.

Trixie looks at Katya as if she’s convinced that she’s lost her mind; Katya thinks that perhaps she finally has.

“Is this up for debate?”. Trixie tries, her voice lighter. Katya visibly relaxes at the sound of it, ethereal and calm, and shakes her head gleefully. Her earlier grin restores itself to its full potential, as does Trixie’s half smile that she tries to downplay, and then she’s propping herself up so that she’s kneeling, her arms looped loosely around Trixie’s neck. Trixie reaches out, bunches Katya’s shirt in her fist and tugs her closer, focuses on the teasingly mischievous glint in Katya’s eyes.

“Absolutely not”. Katya determines, smirks so that Trixie knows that she’s in safe hands. Trixie simply nods and silently agrees, transfers her fate into Katya’s palms that are soft, caring, stroking at Trixie’s shoulders as if she’s built of sand that’s ready to crumble, sink into the mattress.

Trixie thinks that she might if Katya continues her ministrations, persists with her caresses that have Trixie’s eyes slipping closed once again, akin to the sun that fades in and out behind the curtains of her bedroom, blinks between the strands of Katya’s short, silky hair. She tells herself that she deserves it; she’s twenty and content, thinks that she’s maybe, possibly in love with Katya - Trixie doesn’t know how it’s happened - and wills herself to concentrate on Katya’s steady breathing as she picks up her phone from the bedside table once again, distracts herself by replying to Pearls most recent messages.

Her throat constricts at the thoughts that are blades, sharp and lethal, though she focuses on the most prevalent one that’s slicing slicing slicing -

\- It’s her birthday, and she doesn’t mind.

*****

While Katya prepares breakfast, Trixie showers and washes her hair.

She lathers it in her favourite lavender shampoo that she’d managed to purchase online - finding it in local stores proved to be futile - and towel dries it roughly before securing it in two braids to allow it to finishing drying naturally.  
  
It’ll leave her with imperfect waves, curls, and it’s something that she’s content with as she pulls on an ill fitting sundress, trots down the spiral staircase that still gives her a headache and into the kitchen where she spots Katya slaving over a stack of pancakes.   
  
Raina, Dylan and Riley are there too, congregated around the breakfast bar and already digging in to an array of cereals, pastries, fruits.   
  
It’s beyond extravagant; Trixie tells herself that she would have been glad to see a plate of scrambled eggs and French toast that she’s become accustomed to, but she drops the thought when Katya turns to face her, presents her with a plate that’s piled high with syrupy pancakes and warm blueberries.   
  
She places it on the breakfast bar in front of Trixie, where she’s sat on the stool next to Raina, who’s eyeing Trixie suspiciously. Her eyes are narrow and piercing, and Trixie thinks that she’s going to make a joke that won’t land - they never do, Trixie chuckles internally - before she’s placing down her fork carefully, turning to face Trixie with an earnest expression.   
  
Trixie frowns down at her, then up at Katya who’s settled on the stool opposite her next to the boys, her own less stacked plate of pancakes steaming in front of her.   
  
She pushes the longer section of her hair backwards as Trixie searches for the solace that she’s unable to find in her eyes, and tilts her head towards the jug of freshly squeezed orange juice that sits in the centre of the table; Trixie knows that her silent pleas fall on deaf ears.   
  
Turning her head back towards Raina, Trixie settles for smiling encouragingly. It works, Trixie notes, when it draws out the words that had been trapped between Raina’s teeth since Trixie had begun slicing at her pancakes with her blue-handled knives and forks, shovelling chunks of aforementioned pancakes into her mouth with grateful groans.   
  
They make Katya blush.   
  
“Did you guys talk about it?”. Raina voices, knits her eyebrows together.   
  
“I-“. Trixie begins, swallows harshly.   
  
“We did”. Katya interjects. Her eyes are all knowing - it’s a drastic transformation from seconds ago, Trixie wants to kiss her there and then for how quickly she’s succeeded in tuning herself in to the conversation - and they both watch as Raina’s shoulders visibly tense and then slacken, rise and then lower once again.   
  
“But _also_ -“. Katya adds, glances pointedly at Raina.   
  
“-Don’t rub it in too much. Got it, Rai? I’m looking at _you_ , not the boys”. Her tone is stern, convincing, and Trixie could picture Raina crumbling beneath the hefty weight of Katya’s words if it was for the reassuring smile that she plasters across her face with ease, flashing her teeth to both Raina and Trixie.   
  
Katya knows that Dylan and Riley aren’t quite mature enough to recognise dates on calendars that aren’t their own birthdays or Christmas, Halloween or thanksgiving, but is aware that Raina is; she’d been the one to mention the dreaded August twenty-eighth to Katya in the first place, over mugs of cooled down hot chocolate.   
  
She’s a fan of celebrations, all things exaggerated and extravagant. It’s where Katya’s learnt that she differs to Trixie the most, apart from appearance - Katya’s still baffled by the siblings that look almost entirely unrelated, with the exception of their blown out eyes - and she attempts to convey Trixie’s disinterest through her own stiff upper lip, her nose that crinkles in distaste.   
  
“Can I at least say the words?”. Raina chuckles, huffs through her nostrils.   
  
Trixie swallows around her mouth full of food, picks up her newly poured glass of orange juice before lifting it to her lips in order to sip slowly. She nods affirmatively before she does so, nudges Raina with her elbow that almost sends the younger girl toppling. She recovers quickly despite Dylan and Riley’s obnoxious chuckles, receives an apologetic shrug from Trixie that Katya laughs heartily at.   
  
“You can say them, if you really need to”. Trixie mocks, ducks her head with a squeal when Raina picks up a blueberry from her plate, lobs it towards Trixie with an aim that lands directly in the centre of her forehead.   
  
Katya laughs at that, too.   
  
“Happy birthday, _idiot_ ”.   
  
*****   
  
**Trixie: I’m sorry for snapping earlier, I was in a weird mood and didn’t know what to fucking do with myself  
  
Pearl: There’s nothing new there, Mattel  
  
Trixie: But it was uncalled for  
  
Pearl: Yeah, it was, but when I was still trying to work out what was going on with me and Vi, i was all over the place  
  
Trixie: You’re right, but I think I’m getting it under control  
  
Pearl: Sure about that?  
  
Trixie: As sure as I’m going to be  
  
Pearl: How’re you feeling now?  
  
Trixie: I feel like you’re going all full psycho analysis on me but right now I’m pretty good for the most part! Birthdays are weird, have I ever mentioned that?  
  
Pearl: Only whenever I’ve brought it up for the past year  
  
Trixie: Yeah well, I still stand by that  
**   
**Pearl: And Katya?  
  
Trixie: What about her?  
  
Pearl: She didn’t run for the hills at your unusually strong hate for birthdays?  
  
Trixie: Hate is a strong word, but no, she’s been super chilled about the whole thing and I think it’s only made me fall more in love with her  
  
Pearl: So you’ve worked that out then? You’ve definitely fallen for this damn bitch?  
  
Trixie: I’ve been trying not to think about it but honestly? I’m shoulders over knees for her  
  
Pearl: I think the term is head over heels but ok  
  
Trixie: Whatever, I’m serious  
  
Pearl: I know that, I’m genuinely really happy for you!! You’ve busted your ass all year so you deserve these couple of months  
  
Trixie: Can I tell you something?  
  
Pearl: I thought that’s what we were already doing but sure, hit me  
  
Trixie: I’m terrified of summer ending**   
  
**Pearl: You know that if she’s in love with you as much as you are with her then there’s no reason to have any worry whatsoever, right?  
  
Trixie: Captain obvious, but I know, I guess I just don’t want it to be something temporary. I’ve had to suffer with temporary for my whole life and she’s the ounce of permanence I’ve been needing for years !! Not to mention the fact that she’s bat shit crazy in the best way that I’ve ever known  
  
Pearl: I get that, I really do, but you need to trust that the universe won’t fuck you over this time  
  
Trixie: Ugh, I’m sorry again, this is meant to be a chilled day!! Just know that I’ve had three glasses (cups) of wine and it’s only four in the afternoon so that’s probably why I’m an ass right now  
  
Pearl: You’re always an ass, I’m used to it. Now get off of your phone and have a good day!! Update me whenever you next feel like keyboard bashing!! Love you x  
  
** **Trixie: You too, Pearlie**   
  
*****   
  
Trixie drifts through the day in a state of bliss that she’s unable to pin point until she’s sat on the couch in the early hours of the next morning.   
  
Katya’s at her side like she has been for the majority of the day - they’d laid out in the sun together, kept two pairs of observant eyes on the boys as they kicked a deflating soccer ball around the spacious yard - and she’s covering both of their laps with the same knitted blanket that Trixie always gravitates towards.   
  
They keep it folded on the back of the leather couch, all chunky yarn in colours that are soft, pastel, and only unfold it when late evening approaches and the sun has set, casting a cool breeze across the town that circulates around the expansive house.   
  
Trixie buries herself further into Katya’s side, and they’re sat still for the next ten minutes or so, eyes glued to the movie that they’re watching - some dramatic comedy that Trixie has no interest in - until Katya’s untucking the blanket from her side, lifting herself up off of the couch. The movement causes Trixie’s body to slump, draws a whiny groan from her lips as Katya chuckles, saunters to the opposite side of the room.   
  
She cracks open the old fashioned cabinet that stands to her hips, and is walking back over to Trixie within seconds, a palm sized box nestled in one hand and what Trixie assumes are envelopes gripped tightly in the other. She grins down at Trixie before she makes herself comfortable once again, Trixie’s legs outstretched across her lap.   
  
Resting her chin on Katya’s shoulder, Trixie points nonchalantly to the box.   
  
“If you’ve done what I think you’ve done then I’m ‘gonna have to kill you right here, right now”. Trixie jokes.   
  
She drapes the knitted blanket back across Katya’s legs, her waist and half of her upper body, and hums, satisfied when she feels the warmth of Trixie’s body emanating between them. The goosebumps that had formed on her skin in the seconds that she’d been exposed to the frigid night air for begin to decrease, and they vanish completely when Trixie ghosts her hands across Katya’s bicep, digs her fingers into the pliable muscles.   
  
“I’m beginning to think you’re actually out to kill me with all of these threats”. Katya retaliates. Her hands are tugging at strands of Trixie’s hair that have fallen loose from their French braids, twisting them between her thumb and forefinger; she’s set the enveloped and the box down onto Trixie’s knees.   
  
“You know I’m kidding-“. Trixie giggles, leans into Katya’s touch.   
  
“-What are these about?”. She continues.   
  
“Birthday gifts”. Katya confirms Trixie’s suspicions.   
  
“Birthday gifts?”.   
  
“More like birthday _gift_ , but yeah”.   
  
Nodding her head in understanding, Trixie lifts her free hand to Katya’s cheek. She cups it tenderly, strokes her thumb across the high point of Katya’s cheekbone, down to her more prominent dimple before she reaches her lips. She presses it to the corner where Katya smiles, until Katya’s poking out her tongue, prodding it against Trixie’s fingertip.   
  
It causes Trixie to release a shrill squeal, in to Katya’s ear that twitches in reaction to the sheer volume. She recoils noticeably, but quickly relaxes when Trixie drops her forehead once again, ducks it onto Katya’s shoulder. She feels drunk - it’s a regular occurrence when she’s around Katya, has been since they’d met - but she knows that she can’t be. She hasn’t drank anything alcoholic for hours, and reminds herself that even then she hadn’t exceeded her limit of seven glasses or so.   
  
_Maybe eight.  
_   
“Just-“. Katya nods her head towards the box that Trixie’s picked up, is weighing it with her hands.   
  
“-Please take it. It’s not much at all, but you’ll be damned if you thought I was just going to ignore today just because that’s what people around you have always done”. She finishes with a ragged sigh. Her annoyance towards Trixie’s family, her old friends and her father shows more than Trixie ever expected it would. It fills her heart and crushes any doubts that dare to rise in her chest, sends them sinking back to the gutters of her being.   
  
Trixie doesn’t refute further.   
  
“What is it?”.   
  
“Open if and find out, isn’t that what you’re meant to do?”. Katya hits pause on the movie that’s rapidly becoming white noise. Trixie rolls her eyes, a contented smile upon her lips and a blush painted across her sun freckles cheeks.   
  
Removing both of her hands from Katya’s chin and lap, Trixie tugs on the cord string that’s tied around the box in a decadent bow, peels away the tactically chosen brown paper to reveal a black suede box. It’s instantly recognisable - Trixie’s able to link it to the quaint jewellery shop in town with only a flickering glance - and she opens it to the sight of a pair of silver earrings that glint in the low light.   
  
They’re tiny, Eiffel Tower shaped studs that Trixie adores instantly; she pulls them from their case with a grin, slips them into her earlobes that welcome them home. Katya’s eyes droop to watch her do so, and she’s keening into Trixie’s embrace that’s almost suffocating her, smothering her in thank you thank you thank you.   
  
“These are so-“. Trixie’s words get lost in the back of her throat.   
  
“You look like the epitome of a French student”.   
  
“I love them”.   
  
“You do?”. Katya gapes, her eyes bulging beyond what Trixie thought they would.   
  
Trixie nods her head yes, rubs her fingers across the miniature, silver architectural marvels that sit on her ear lobes. She loves them, of course she does, loves the earrings and loves Katya, is in love with Katya and everything that she does, her words and her actions that have proved to baffle Trixie since they’d shared their first bottle of wine, split between two mugs that Trixie’s able to recall with perfect detail.   
  
She loves Katya, and needs her to know.   
  
“Katya-.” Trixie mumbles, locks her tear glazed eyes with Katya’s.   
  
“-Je suis amoureuse de toi”.   
  
Trixie’s breathing grows shaky, as does Katya’s, but they’re both grinning, and Katya’s squeezing Trixie’s frame tighter, nodding her head once again because yes, Trixie loves her, Trixie’s in love with her. She reciprocates Trixie’s feelings with every cell of her body that Trixie’s slotted herself in to, and she’s whispering it back to Trixie with a new found delicacy.   
  
“You’re so, _god_ -“. Katya stutters. “I know, Trix, I know. I’m in love with you too”.   
  
*****   
  
The envelopes enclose birthday cards from her Raina, Dylan and Riley.   
  
Trixie reads each of them individually as Katya browses the TV for a show that they haven’t already watched with disenchanted eyes, until she lands on a documentary that’s advertised as new. They watch it with glowing eyes, the screen reflecting back into their pupils, and only take it upon themselves to strike up the conversation that had dwindled comfortably and with ease when the title credits roll down the blackened screen.   
  
Sighing audibly, happily, Trixie turns said screen entirely cold with the click of a button.   
  
“Can I tell you something?”. She asks, waits for Katya’s encouraging smile that comes seconds later. She inhales deeply in preparation, rearranges the position of their legs so that their positions are reversed. Katya settles quickly, bends her knees atop of Trixie’s lap.   
  
“If you’re ‘gonna ask if we can order pizza from that one place then the answer is yes”.   
  
“That’s not want I was going for, but pizza sounds good“. Trixie chuckles disbelievingly. Katya’s eyes look hopeful - Trixie knows that she’d eat pizza for every meal if she could - and she makes sure to point to the take out menu that sits on the coffee table in the centre of the room before she restores her serious facial expression. She looks understanding, and Trixie takes her hand in both of hers.   
  
“What did you ‘wanna talk about?”. Katya tries.   
  
“I wanted to thank you”.   
  
“ _Thank_ me?”.   
  
“I haven’t celebrated a birthday since mom died”. Katya knows that it’s been twelve years. Trixie had spoken to her before, hormonal and emotional, when Katya had mentioned an old family portrait that sits in a wooden frame on Trixie’s bathroom windowsill, next to an array of scented candles. She’d cried, expressed how guilty she felt for not being able to remember her moms smile, her laugh or the tone of her voice when she would read Trixie’s favourite stories to her before falling asleep at night.   
  
She’d harboured it for over a decade, but Katya’s affirmations had soothed her conscience, instilled in her that she wasn’t to blame, still isn’t to blame. Katya knows that Trixie still misses her now too, naturally, and doesn’t hesitate to pull her in closer, press an understanding kiss to Trixie’s forehead.   
  
“Trixie-“. Katya’s words get cut off.   
  
“Just, _thank you_ for today. I won’t forget it”.   
  
*****   
  
They make it to bed by three in the morning, and Trixie already knows that they’re both going to struggle to arise before dawn to make Raina and the boys their breakfasts; she can’t find it within herself to regret her choices when Katya’s kissing at her neck, mumbling goodnight’s and I love you’s.   
  
Trixie‘s unable to drop the uncontrollable smile from her face in the calm of the room, and mulls over how a mundane day is being etched in her memory as perfect, loving, unimaginable. It seems beyond unrealistic - Katya’s still at her side, peppering featherlight kisses to her cheeks that are upturned in a gleeful grin - but the weight of Katya’s body against hers settles her.   
  
It’s real.   
  
Katya _loves_ her.   
  
“Your mom would be really proud of you, you know?”.   
  
Trixie simply nods - she’d like to think so.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trixie: My dad knows about me and Katya 
> 
> Trixie: Pearl it’s not good 
> 
> Trixie: He’s so mad, I don’t know what he’s going to say 
> 
> Pearl: Oh my god what the fuck? I thought you weren’t telling him! 
> 
> Trixie: We didn’t! 
> 
> Trixie: He caught us making out 
> 
> Trixie: In the kitchen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> penultimate ch!! 
> 
> this ch is a journey, but i just want to say thank you so much to everybody who’s commented, sent asks or left kudos! i appreciate you all so much! 
> 
> as always i hope you enjoy this part, and i’ll see you next time for the last ch!!
> 
> feel free to let me know what you think <3

Trixie’s nearest neighbours live a mile away.

They rarely see each other; they’re a retired couple in their mid sixties that Trixie can recall living in the expansive house with acres of land, storeys of bedrooms that remain vacant, along with a pool in the back yard that gets cleaned religiously each spring.

Trixie’s always envied them - she associates nothing more with summer than lazing poolside - and it’s why when they offer herself, Katya, Raina and the boys free reign of the grounds for a week whilst they vacation in Europe, in exchange for merely watering their plants, Trixie jumps at the chance. 

She packs an overnight bag, fills it with mismatched swimsuits and coverups, bottles of sunscreen in factor thirty, and a travel sized version of her favourite shower gel. _Lavender_. Katya packs similarly, and assists the boys with doing so too, until they’re piling themselves into the air conditioned jeep on a blistering Sunday morning.

It’s above one hundred degrees, and has barely reached eleven o’clock; the boys complain about the tacky leather of the seats that stick to their thighs - Dylan more so than Riley - whilst Raina reiterates that she can’t wait to be able to catch an actual tan. Trixie chuckles brazenly at her, knows that she’s going to burn more than tan like she does every summer, and focuses her attention back on Katya, who’s driving wordlessly down the privately tarred lane, parking the hefty vehicle with ease when she pulls into the driveway of the _Thompson’s_.

She springs out of the passenger seat, treks in long strides up the cobblestone driveway in order to unlock the door with the spare set of keys that she’s had attached to her own for years. The lock clicks, and she’s bouncing through the threshold, into the hallway that’s even bigger than her fathers, with the twins hot on her heels.

They gasp audibly - Trixie doesn’t understand why, they’ve seen it numerous times before in summers past - but Raina’s directly behind them, making her way through the easily memories corridors to the back patio doors. Trixie tosses her the keys, receives a devilish grin in response, and slugs her way back to the jeep in order to help Katya with the abandoned bags. 

Katya looks calm, blissful; as relaxed as Trixie feels.

She has every right to, Trixie decides later in the day, when the sun has begun setting in watercolours of pink, orange and lilac. It’s barley nine in the evening, but Trixie’s bleary eyed and dazed, bracing herself against the edge of the oversized pool as she kicks her legs out lethargically in front of herself. Katya’s there too, her elbows resting on the splash covered tiles as she stares off in the vague direction of the house, towards the patio doors that are half ajar.

Her eyes narrow in on the two pairs of discarded shoes that lay on the tweed door mat, and a humour filled chuckle slips past her lips, out into the yard and into Trixie’s ears. Trixie turns her head to face her, reads the story that’s pouring from Katya’s chuckles, her eyes that are aflame with enjoyment, glee that reflects on the aqua surface of the pool that surrounds them. 

Cocking an eyebrow, Trixie prods Katya’s exposed stomach mockingly beneath the water.

The action causes Katya to shriek, makes her eyes scrunch up in delight when Trixie’s arms loops around her waist, tug their bodies closer together. Trixie hums in contentment, basks in the feeling of the bare skin of her stomach gliding against Katya’s, the slip of the sunscreen that’s slathered across them liberally leaving little opportunity for friction.

Katya presses the pads of her fingers into the dimples at the base of Trixie’s spine, spins them around in the water in order to rest Trixie’s arching back against the tiled wall. Trixie allows her to do so, wraps her legs around Katya’s waist as Katya glances fleetingly to the patio doors once again, half expecting one of the boys or Raina to be stood there, mouths agape and questioning.

Trixie knows that they won’t be. She swears that they have nothing to be fearful of; Raina has tucked herself away in one of the guest rooms on the third floor, and the boys are crashed out on the living room couch, bodies drained from energy due to their insistent havoc wreaking throughout the yard and pool that had lasted for hours on end. 

“ _Katya_ -“. Trixie breathes, braces her hands atop of Katya’s sunburnt shoulders.

Her fingers loop into the string that holds Katya’s bikini top securely at the back of her neck, tied into a loose bow. They fiddle with it, threaten to pull them apart and send the cups of said bikini falling, exposing Katya’s breasts, her nipples that Trixie can already feel hardening through the damp fabric.

“-Katya”.She repeats.

Trixie can feel her temperature skyrocketing. Her body reacts to Katya in ways that she’s grown accustom to - it’s familiar and welcoming, though far from foreseen and predictable - and she’s whimpering into the minimal space between them when Katya shifts her hips forward slightly, presses Trixie back further into the tiled wall.

The chlorinated water sloshes around them, catches the strands of Trixie’s hair that have fallen loose from her makeshift bun. It soaks them thoroughly, and Katya’s chucking to herself as she attempts to push them back into the hair tie for Trixie, only to have them slip freely once more, drape back around Trixie’s shoulders.

Trixie doesn’t care, she understands Katya’s intentions; she’s seeking to draw it out for as long as she can, the silent torture and tension that’s been building building building all day, consuming Trixie’s every waking second that she’d spent lapping up the rays of sun, licking at melting ice cream cones. Raina had picked up on it, she’s certain of it, had latched an observant eye onto the way Katya had purposefully sent Trixie flying from the balance of her floating lounger more than once, had ensured to help her back on with tactful fingers afterwards.

Her sisters far from obtuse, and Trixie knows it, though is quick to wipe the insistent thought from her mind as Katya drags her lips across Trixie’s freckled cheek, down to her jawline and up towards her ear where she nibbles at the lobe, then the cartilage. It sends a jolt throughout Trixie’s body, causes her fingertips to tug harder at the unravelling ties of Katya’s bikini and her toes to curl up against the base of Katya’s spine; Katya loves how responsive she is.

“Has this been your plan all day?-”. Katya breathes, her breath hot against the shell of Trixie’s ear.

“-To just get me alone so I’d fuck you like you’ve wanted for hours?”.

Trixie finds herself nodding her head. It’s been a passing thought for the entirety of the day, with Katya sauntering around in her tight, black two piece, taunting Trixie in what Trixie’s deemed to be her plan to send Trixie to an early grave. She’s going the right way about it, Trixie thinks, when Katya’s hands are doing what Trixie’s have been itching to do since Katya had latched onto her, begun kissing at her neck.

Her breasts are freed from her white bikini top with a mere tug of Katya’s hand, and Trixie whines as Katya peels it off of her body, tosses it behind Trixie’s head, to the tiles surrounding the pool. It lands with a wet thud that has Trixie rolling her eyes - it’s all in good nature, Katya knows that it is - and she’s pulling Katya closer still to her being, crossing her ankles on the cushion of Katya’s ass.

“Last night wasn’t enough for you? Or this morning?” Katya persists. 

Trixie shakes her head, doesn’t think twice about absorbing herself in the memories of Katya fucking her into the mattress the night prior, with her mascara streaking down her cheeks and her head buried in a stack of pillows. She thinks about the morning, too, how Katya had dropped to her knees in the shower, had eaten Trixie out with the bathroom window open, ventilating the room and allowing the faint chirps of the bluebirds on the branches of the trees outside to caress her senses. 

She’d coaxed Trixie to an orgasm that had left her shaking, breathing Katya’s name into the palm of her own hand, two fingers resting against her tongue, spit dripping down her chin. Trixie knows that she’d been a vision - Katya had been so worked up that she’d been pushed over the edge by Trixie’s skilled fingers within seconds - and knows that she continues to be, with her chest heaving and thighs clenching. 

Katya wants every part of her.

“I swear to _god_ if you don’t-“. Trixie’s words are broken off by a huff.

Dipping her hand beneath the waist band of Trixie’s bikini bottoms, Katya threads the tips of her fingers into Trixie’s pubic hair, all blonde and damp beneath the water, and yanks. The action has Trixie’s hips stuttering, bucking up into Katya’s touch that’s already moving, dragging between Trixie’s lips that part with ease.

Trixie keens, tilts her head back with a low moan. It gives Katya uninhibited access to her neck - Trixie wants to die when Katya’s lips, her teeth, her tongue, attack her pulse point - and she’s humming when Trixie digs her fingernails into Katya’s shoulder blades; it’s a direct reaction of Katya finally pressing down on her throbbing clit. 

“Fuck-“. Exhales Trixie, her breath catching in her throat.

“-Fuck fuck fuck”.

“Alright?”. Katya checks, repositions her arm so that she’s able to slide two fingers inside of Trixie, her thumb maintaining its consistent pressure on Trixie’s clit that’s peaking out of its hood, seeking the pleasure that Katya’s withholding. Grinding her hips down in response, Trixie nods her head, screws her eyes shut in concentration.

“ _Yes_ ”. She pants, lifts a hand from Katya’s shoulder only to plant it on her jaw, before she’s trailing it up to Katya’s hair. She grazes the pads of her fingers across the buzzed sections, tangles them in the longer parts that are half wet, half drying frizzily in the humidity that Trixie’s beginning to loathe.

Trixie’s sweating; it’s pumping out of her as rapidly as Katya’s fingers are curling, crooking inside of her, drawing her closer to the orgasm that she’s able to spot in the distant horizon. It’s visible over Katya’s shoulder, in the sun that’s almost fully set, diminished to a meagre glow that’s golden, peachy, fire.

She can feel her wetness sleeping out of her, too, even under the water where it’s hard to tell where she finishes and Katya begins, their limbs entangled in a way that Trixie doesn’t think she’s ever going to be capable of letting go of. She’d drain herself for Katya if she could, and thinks that she might when Katya tugs Trixie’s eyes down to meet hers by her chin, thumb imprinting on her bottom lip.

Katya’s eyes are dark. They’re glazed over - Trixie thinks that she might drown in them if she doesn’t choke on the lust that’s encapsulated them first - and she’s blinking up at Trixie through blonde eyelashes and hooded eyelids.

She’s mumbling come for me come for me come for me under her breath, into Trixie’s open mouth that’s gasping for air. Trixie knows that she has no choice but to obey; Katya’s fingers are working her up so well and so quickly that she thinks she has seconds before she topples over the edge, comes with Katya’s name on her lips, her hair in her hands.

“I’m ‘gonna come-“. Trixie confirms. “- _Fuck_ , it’s so good, you’re ‘gonna make me come”.

“Good girl, come on”.

Trixie does come. She clenches around Katya’s fingers with all of the strength that she possess, crashes her lips into Katya’s with a ferocity that shocks the both of them into releasing moans that have pent up steadily, amounted to lewd exhalations that disturb the serene atmosphere around them.

It’s her imagination; the leaves on the trees in the yard shake, the pool erupts in waves of tsunamis, and the sun sets fully behind the grey clouds as Trixie keeps _coming coming coming_ , hot against Katya’s fingers.

Neither want it to stop.

*****

**Pearl: Trixie!!**

**Pearl: Trixie Mattel!!**

**Pearl: Answer my texts you asshole**

**Trixie: I thought we discussed you bullying me**

**Pearl: Yeah we did but listen, I have NEWS**

**Trixie: If you’re going to tell me that you’ve hooked up with that same girl that you know from your old high school again I’m already not interested**

**Pearl: How could you?**

**Pearl: Anyway that’s not it**

**Trixie: What is it then? I’m in a time crunch here, I have a Raina to help, she needs to fix her hair**

**Pearl: Fix her hair?**

**Trixie: She tried bleaching it herself, now she’s ginger**

**Pearl: Oh!! I did that once, but then my mom took my to the salon to get it fixed**

**Pearl: I hated it though so I dyed it pink the next day**

**Trixie: PEARL what is it?**

**Pearl: I just realised there’s only two weeks left of summer**

**Trixie: Oh wow is that it?**

**Trixie: Thanks for reminding me**

**Pearl: But Chicago!**

**Pearl: Oh shit**

**Pearl: Wait**

**Pearl: You don’t want to leave**

**Trixie: You’re a fucking genius Pearl**

**Pearl: God damn it, you’re screwed**

*****

Trixie isn’t able to pin point when things shift until they already have.

There’s a little over a week left of summer - nine days, Trixie’s counting them down begrudgingly - until Katya leaves, heads back to Boston whilst Trixie hops on the train back to Chicago with her singular suitcase and overfilled backpack. She’s not sure how it’s all going to fit; she’s finishing summer with more than she’d ever bargained for when she’d arrived, harboured with no more than six outfits and three pairs of shoes that she’d payed too much for.

Her memories are stacked, piled high on top of one and other in locked compartments that she’s tried and failed to categorise. It’s impossible to do so, with each second since she had arrived back in _Merrowbridge_ Milwaukee taking up a whole chapter of the book that she’s simply titled _Summer_.

Days take up infinite paragraphs, weeks even more so, and Trixie’s left with an outlook that’s flipped three hundred and sixty degrees from when she had first faced the realisation that she would have to turn her back on her life in Chicago for a handful of months. There are recollections of wine dazed stupors, erratic nights and lazy mornings that are all encompassed by the thought of _Katya_ , charismatic and understanding and loving.

Trixie’s fallen in love in three months.

It’s why she’s taking full advantage of every moment that she can get her hands on; she kisses Katya slower and fucks her deeper, lets Katya do the same to her with her broad hands on her hips, squeezing and scratching and clinging. Katya embraces the energy that reverberates off of Trixie, and Trixie knows that Katya reciprocates it with every word and every touch, her demeanour that Keeps Trixie on her toes, yet manages to relax her simultaneously. 

It’s why Trixie has Katya cornered against the kitchen counter, too, her arms snaked around her waist and her lips on Katya’s neck. Katya has her head craned backwards, so that it leaves her neck as exposed as it can be, and Trixie’s dragging her teeth across it, pressing her lips to the one vein that pulses beneath Trixie’s tongue.

She moans freely, as does Trixie when Katya slips her hands beneath the hem of Trixie’s shirt, glides them upwards until they rest where she knows that Trixie’s bra strap should be. Trixie giggles - she’s not wearing a bra, knows that Katya had already come to that conclusion from the feeling of Trixie’s nipples pressing against hers through the thin material of her shirt - and allows Katya to pull her closer.

“Trixie-“. Katya huffs.

“-We’re meant to be watching a movie with the boys”.

Nodding her head, Trixie hums affirmatively. She knows, of course she knows, but Katya’s there, in front of her, dragging her nails across Trixie’s back and standing on the tips of her toes in order to meet Trixie’s lips, press kiss after kiss to Trixie’s mouth that’s sticky from remnants of strawberry flavoured gloss.

“We should stop”. Katya giggles into the kiss.

“Absolutely”. Trixie agrees, continues kissing sporadically.

It’s intoxicating - Trixie doesn’t want to stop in lieu of watching a movie that she’s bound to have seen at least five times before - as is the feeling of the cool breeze blustering in through the open patio doors; it tickles at Trixie’s neck where her hair has been yanked upwards into a scraggly pony tail. 

Katya breaks away from the kiss that Trixie wants to stretch on and on and on, akin to a rubber band that she could pull, only allow to snap back into place at her command. She misses the softness, the delicacy and the defiance of Katya within seconds, and takes it upon herself to crowd in further, squeeze Katya’s denim clad hips tightly in the palms of her hands.

They’re sweaty, have been for a while, and the remainder of her body is beginning to fall in line when the wind outside falters, fails to provide the counter that she requires. Katya notices - Trixie doesn’t doubt that Katya’s more in tune with her body than she is, by this point in the summer - and detangles her arms from around Trixie’s back, sets them on her hunched shoulders instead.

“We _really_ should stop-“. Katya tries, receives a nod from Trixie.

She can feel the process about to repeat itself.

“-Trixie, later, movie”. Katya stutters.

Trixie knows that Katya’s right. 

She heaves her lips away from Katya’s, albeit under protest, and relaxes in order to rest her forehead against Katya’s. Katya blinks up at her, wide eyed compared to seconds ago, and smiles with all of the love that Trixie’s ever known in her eyes as the silence of the room blankets them.

It’s after dinner on a Monday, all mundane and uneventful, and Trixie’s glad for the quiet that the evening’s providing until it stops, suddenly -

\- and Trixie’s father is slouching through the arched doorway to the kitchen.

He’s seething - Trixie can tell without even so much as glancing at him - with his jaw tight and his fists clenched. His eyes are dark, beady as they stare both Trixie and Katya down, his nose crinkled in disdain. It has Trixie shoving herself off of Katya within seconds, so that she’s able to stand regretfully in the centre of the room, her heart in her throat and Katya’s nerves scattered across the ground.

Katya’s mouth is agape, and then it twists in a grimace as she watches Trixie take a step backwards, away from her father who’s striding closer, dropping his briefcase on the breakfast bar with a thud. It echoes around the room, so loudly that Trixie swears it’s going to shatter the panes of the windows that are cracked open, causing the blinds to float upwards.

Trixie gulps - she can hear it in her ears, along with Katya’s deep breaths - and straightens her shoulders; she refuses to shrink further under her fathers intense scrutiny, tells herself that she’s spent too many years doing so. She hopes that he’ll say nothing, though she doubts it’ll happen. It’s unrealistic, she knows, can already visualise the conversation that’s yet to begin, words of hatred and bigotry rolling off of her fathers tongue in drops of venomous blood.

Her father steadies his posture too, peers back and forth between Trixie and Katya.

“So is _that_ your game, huh?“. He scoffs, turns his body in order to face Katya head on, ignoring Trixie’s pleas of stop stop stop. He brushes Trixie off with a dismissive wave, centres his attention on Katya, who’s shrinking into the corner of the countertop. She shakes her head rapidly, furrows her eyebrows in disbelief.

“There’s-“. Katya halts.

“-There’s no game”. Her voice grows in confidence with each word that she sprouts earnestly, as does Trixie’s, who’s raising the volume of her chants - no no no - as she makes her way to stand between Katya and her father. He looks down upon her, wipes his hand across the stubble that stretches from ear to ear, over his jaw that’s still as tight as it was moments ago.

The scratching noise is off putting, and he falters under his own ministrations when Trixie takes ahold of Katya’s hand, entangles their fingers behind her back. It’s comforting, reassuring, and Katya no longer appears as small next to Trixie’s father - his stance tall and manipulative - doesn’t look as frail compared to his stature.

“No game?-”. He barks.

“-I hired you to watch over my three youngest not seduce my eldest!”. He concludes.

Trixie wants the ground to swallow her up. She’s never felt as looked over in her life, as unimportant in her own home where she’s had the summer that she’d never expected, with Raina and Dylan and Riley and Katya, because of Katya. She doesn’t understand his audacity, his valorous nature that she’d never inherited; she’s mostly glad for it when she notices his face tense further, his shoulders slump again in aversion.

“You don’t get to say that”. Trixie intervenes.

“I don’t get to say that?”.

“Absolutely _fucking_ not-”. Trixie’s equally as displeased.

She’s furious, exasperated with her father for insinuating that he understood herself and Katya, the crutch that Katya had provided her with for months whilst he flew business class from country to country, elevated bars to grimy clubs that Trixie doesn’t care to become acquainted with; she knows that he has habits that she’d rather turn a blind eye to.

“-I’m your daughter, who happens to be an adult, I’m not one of your employees and you will not control me like you do everybody else. I grew up, dad, whether you noticed it or not. I grew the _fuck_ up”. Trixie spits, is spurred on by the feeling of Katya’s thumb stroking across her knuckles. It’s soothing, and is a welcomed contrast to the brash words that are being thrown around akin to darts, aimed directly towards Trixie’s seizing heart.

Katya gauges her reaction, along with Trixie’s fathers. He’s stood in the same spot, his chest jittering in ragged breaths that Trixie knows are paining him to take. Katya lets Trixie’s grip on her hand tighten, and bites her lip in preparation of retaliation when she’s certain that Trixie’s not going to add anything more.

“Listen I-“. Katya clears her throat.

“-I promise everything was totally consensual and-“.

She’s cut off by a snicker.

Trixie’s father rakes his eyes up and down the length of Katya’s body, from her dishevelled hair to her bare feet, her flushed chest and the yellowing bruise that Trixie’s sucked into the side of her neck. He focuses on it for what Trixie deems to be a second too long - it’s invasive, uncalled for - until he’s pointing behind Trixie, directly to Katya.

She blinks once.

“Shut up, you need to leave”. He commands.

“You can’t do that”. Trixie defends.

“Watch me, Trixie”.

“Who else is gonna look after your kids, _huh_? ‘Cause you for sure won’t”.

The words are out of Trixie’s mouth before she’s able to register them leaving in poorly formed attacks. They cut and they slice, slash through the air that’s thick and tense, waiting to be broken by one of them breaking, snapping. Her father surveys her knowingly, with eyes that tell Trixie he’s a combination of offended and bored; bored of Trixie and bored of the conversation.

“I’ll look after them”. He reassures, only for Trixie to laugh brazenly.

“You’ve never looked after us for more than a week straight in our lives”. Trixie rolls her eyes.

She can’t help herself. There are words that she feels need to be said, ones that her father needs to hear - if they’re able to push through his built up barricade - and ones that she’s mulled over for months, years. She’s toyed with them half heartedly, had even expressed them to Pearl, and to Katya when she had asked, but she’s never dared utter them around her father, has told herself that it wouldn’t be worth it.

Katya thinks that she’s right, and her hand instinctively makes its way to Trixie’s back.

“Get out of my kitchen”. Trixie’s father orders, motions disgustedly towards Katya.

“- _Dad_ ”. Trixie tries, kisses at her teeth when she gets cut off. Her father shakes his head - Trixie thinks that for once it might be with good intentions - and she watches as his expression visibly softens, wilts into one if defeat. He glances back and forth between Trixie and Katya once more, loosens his tie that’s right around his neck, tucked under the collar of his sweat patch ridden shirt with a grunt.

“She can go and sort the boys out”.

Trixie sighs in relief, allows herself to drop Katya’s hand that she swears she’s left torn up, littered with half crescent moon shapes from where her nails had undoubtedly dug into the palms of them. Trixie’s hand is sweaty, and she thinks that her forehead is too, but then she’s nodding her head, watching Katya walk away with a drag in her step.

“And me?”. She questions tentatively.

“We’ll talk later”.

*****

Katya’s eyes are red and puffy when Trixie finds her, sat quietly on the edge of her bed.

Trixie enters the room with a mere squeak of the door - she makes a mental note to remind herself that the hinges need oiling - and crosses the floorboards in wide strides until she’s sat next to Katya, her arm wrapped protectively around her taught shoulders. Katya stiffens momentarily, though relaxes when Trixie places one two three kisses to the top of her head.

“Hey”. Trixie mumbles.

Katya smiles softly at Trixie’s voice, looks up at her from beneath her blonde lashes that are clumped together with tears. It makes Trixie’s heart soften, though causes the rage that has still yet to quell in her mind to rekindle itself; it’s a bag of coal being scattered onto an open fire.

“Hi”. Katya breathes in response, nestles herself into the crook of Trixie’s neck. They’re both warm, overheated and harbouring sunburnt shoulders that sting and blister. It’s far from comfortable for either of them, but Trixie doesn’t care, not when Katya’s whimpering into her neck, attempting to disguise the silent tears that have begun trickling from her eyes.

“I’m ‘gonna go and speak to my dad, _alright_?-“. Trixie reassures, waits for Katya to nod into her chest.

“-Just, don’t worry. You’re not leaving, no way”. She states definitively.

Katya nods her head once again, though Trixie can feel her tears pouring, dripping off of her chin and into Trixie’s lap. She does so silently - Trixie knows that she’s attempting to keep up a front that’s fooling neither of them - but then she’s hiccuping violently, shrinking in her own skin that Trixie wants to protect, kiss all over.

“You’re not leaving”. Trixie’s voice is stern, until she repeats herself, getting softer softer softer until Katya calms.

Sitting up, Katya wipes at her drying tears with the sleeve of her shirt, sniffs in order to clear her nose. Trixie smiles, a renewed sense of confidence, and unwinds her arms from Katya’s body. Katya places her own hands on Trixie’s face instead, cups her supple cheeks in both of her hands, draws Trixie’s face down to hers with the words bouncing between them.

_“You’re not leaving”._

*****

**Trixie: My dad knows about me and Katya**

**Trixie: Pearl it’s not good**

**Trixie: He’s so mad, I don’t know what he’s going to say**

**Pearl: Oh my god what the fuck? I thought you weren’t telling him!**

**Trixie: We didn’t!**

**Trixie: He caught us making out**

**Trixie: In the kitchen**

**Pearl: Oh wow**

**Pearl: You’re a dumb fuck, aren’t you?**

**Trixie: Listen, in my defence, the last thing I expected today was for him to turn up out of the blue after not seeing him in months**

**Trixie: He normally gives me at least a weeks warning!**

**Trixie: Shit**

**Trixie: What the hell do I do**

**Pearl: You be honest?**

**Trixie: Hilarious**

**Pearl: I’m serious**

**Trixie: How would that work? Have you met my dad? Conservative Christian dad that wouldn’t give us candy as a child because it was unnatural?**

**Pearl: I mean**

**Trixie: Oh Yeah sure, “Hey dad I’m partaking in a homosexual relationship, I hope you’re more accepting of the unnatural these days!”**

**Pearl: Try it, what have you got to lose? Like for real?**

**Trixie: I hate that you’re right**

**Trixie: AGAIN**

**Pearl: As always**

**Pearl: You know, you might be surprised**

**Trixie: I sure as hell hope so**

**Trixie: Thank you dearest guardian angel!**

*****

Trixie’s sat in the living room, her chest heavy and her eyes a pair of dead weights.

Her fathers sat opposite her on the grand arm chair - Trixie struggles to look at it without visualising Katya, Katya kissing her and fucking her - and Trixie already knows that his intentions aren’t as cruel as they initially were; he’s looking at her softly, his expression a contortion of _I’m trying._

It eases Trixie’s worries beyond her comprehension, and then she’s crossing her legs, left over right - it’s the opposite of what she would normally do - and sits proudly with her head held high, a tentative smile painted across her face. Her father looks pensive, his legs spread with his elbow resting on his knees, but Trixie can hear him thinking, can feel the cogs of his mind churning.

“Did this happen as soon as I left?”. He pipes up.

“No-“. Trixie hurries to clarify, watches his face soften further.

“-It took a little while”.

He nods his head at the revelation, scratches behind his ear in what Trixie assumes is an attempted nonchalance. She’s not certain that it works, but she appreciates the effort that he’s putting in to not reverting to his old ways, the beliefs that Trixie knows that he still harbours despite his best strifes. Clearing his throat, Trixie’s father persists.

“And you’re sure everything’s completely consensual?”.

“Dad-“. Trixie huffs.

“- _Yes_ , both of us wanted this. Both of us _want_ this”.

Her dad chews his bottom lip between his teeth - they’re crooked but have been artificially whitened, like her own - and visibly gives in. He allows his shoulders to return to their natural position, down from where they had been tucked up to his ears, and crosses his legs at the ankles briefly, before he’s standing abruptly, making his way across the room in order to sit next to Trixie on the cushion covered couch.

His eyes are honest, open, and Trixie sees the man that she remembers, for once, the father who loved her mother, adores her and Raina, and Dylan and Riley. He looks older, more weathered, evident in his greying hair that’s balding too, slicked back with an ounce too much of gel that Trixie’s always disliked.

She knows that he’s been through all of the hardships in life that she can list off of the top of her head; poverty, loss, bereavement. It’s why she admired him, she thinks, in some ways, for his sheer grit and determination that’s led him to leading the life that she knows that he adores, with all of its travelling for business purposes, staying away from home for long periods of time.

 _Home_.

He’d purchased their house with her mom when they had been in their thirties, when Trixie was merely a thought that had yet to be materialised into the universe. It’s full circle - she believes in it whole heartedly - and when he’s grinning softly, placing his hand on top of Trixie’s head gently, Trixie can’t find it within herself to mock the foundations that shape his entire existence.

“Sometimes I think I forget that you’re not so little anymore-”. He chuckles.

“-You’re a grown woman, kid”.

He fluffs Trixie’s hair with his calloused palm, waits for Trixie’s face to illuminate with the smile that he can see brewing beneath the surface. He pulls her into a hug, when it does, and sighs regretfully into the top of Trixie’s dishevelled hair.

Trixie knows that he has to leave.

“I have to go-“. He pulls away from the embrace.

“-Airport in an hour”.

“ _Yeah_ , I figured”.

Trixie’s not mad; she’s at peace, content with how things have settled and happy to know that her father holds no grudges, bares no ill intentions towards her. It’s reassuring, and has Trixie smiling when he stands once again, motions for Trixie to stand too. Trixie does so, and feels her body become whole under the pressure of her fathers hand that lands supportively on her shoulder.

“Will you please tell Katya that I didn’t mean it?-”. He questions, receives a brief nod from Trixie.

“-The kids seem really happy with her here and I don’t want to take that away from them”.

Trixie wouldn’t allow him to do so, but she hums affirmatively regardless, crosses her arm across her chest in order to place her own hand on top of her fathers. She squeezes once, twice, and then lets go at the frown that reappears on his temporarily calm face.

“You seem happy with her here, too”. He confesses. 

“I am”.

_She is._

Trixie can’t find the words in the dictionaries that she has stashed in the library of her mind to describe the love that fills her whenever she thinks of Katya, whenever Katya is around. She fills Trixie’s heart, encompasses her entire world that’s made up of Milwaukee, Chicago and beyond; things that seem irrelevant whenever Katya’s lips are on hers, or when Katya’s spilling her guts about a new book that she’s read.

She tells herself that it should feel juvenile, but she’s never felt as grown up in her life. She’s in love, feels loved and has love to give, finds that she awakens with a glow each morning that refuses to diminish, even through the days that don’t work in her favour.

“If this is a serious thing then-“. Her father begins, only for Trixie to turn the tables, cut him off unintentionally.

“Dad”.

“Trixie”.

“It is-“. She realises.

 _“-It is”._

*****

Trixie’s father leaves after he says his goodbyes around thirty minutes later.

It leaves Trixie sat on the living room couch long after leaves, listening to the faint echoes of Dylan and Katya’s voices that travel through the ceiling. Trixie thinks that they’re playing a video game; she makes out menial chatter about menu buttons, and remote controls that she doesn’t understand.

She ponders until the noise dies down, and retrieves a bottle of wine from the fridge in the kitchen before she clambers up the stairs, across the long corridor and towards her room. She enters quietly, ever cautious of the creaky hinges on the door, and pads across the room until she’s inches from the bed.

The sheets are roused on Katya’s side, Trixie’s side remaining untouched, and Trixie smiles softly to herself at the sight of Katya, curled up on her side with a worried frown adorning her face. It makes Trixie simper - she should have known that Katya would have been sleeping, exhausted from the day - and she sets the still closed wine bottle down on the floor with a gentle thud.

Katya stirs, but then Trixie’s slipping into the bed behind her, her body clothed in merely underwear and an oversized shirt. She hushes Katya softly, kisses up against her neck, inhales the familiar scent of Katya’s shampoo and conditioner. 

“Go back to sleep, baby”. Trixie whispers.

Katya does, and Trixie follows, watches the frown disappear from Katya’s face.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It makes her reminisce on the months that have flown by, a whirlwind of life and events that have placed brick on top of brick, cemented her existence. She’s spent each month since September visiting Katya, alternating weekends in Boston and Chicago, even spending Thanksgiving with Katya’s family and using the last days of their Christmas vacation to fly to New York together.
> 
> They’re memories that Trixie predicts will be etched into their corner of the universe for as long as Trixie maintains them, works on them with Katya at her side. She doesn’t doubt it for a second, and evens out her breathing when she feels Katya’s arm wrap around her shoulders, her skin already tanning in the while that she’s been bathing in sunlight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> final ch!! 
> 
> it’s been a long journey, and this ch is all over the place, but as always i’m so grateful for everybody who’s supported me!! 
> 
> i hope you enjoy some happy lesbians! feel free to let me know what you think!<3

_One year later._

Trixie finishes her sophomore year of college at two o’clock on a Friday, and finds herself back in her dorm room, packing up her suitcase for summer within the hour.

She’s sweating as she does it; it’s already in the mid nineties outside, and she curses the scorching weather of late may, begrudges the lack of air conditioning in her room that she shares with Pearl. She wipes her forehead with the back of her hand, grimaces with the knowledge that her makeup has undoubtedly seen better days, and finishes zipping up her suitcase that’s packed to the brim with a huff.

Her backpack is stuffed full, too - it’s the same one that she’d taken back to Wisconsin the year prior - as are the pockets of her denim cut off shorts. 

There’s her phone and her keys, a stick of gum that she can feel melting and a wad of crumpled dollar bills. She deems them to be essential, for the most part, and finds herself grinning when said phone vibrates in the back pocket of her shorts, forces her to pay attention to the screen that she’s ignored for too long.

A string of messages have flooded in throughout the course of the half an hour that it’s taken her to pack aforementioned bags, ensure that they’re filled with everything that she knows she’s going to need to get through the next couple of months; clothing, phone chargers, bikinis and a new vibrator that she’s grown fond of.

Trixie perches herself on the edge of her bed, adorned with lavender sheets and throw cushions as she flicks open the screen, casts her gaze to the cluttered wall in front of her momentarily. It’s the wall above Pearls bed, and is littered with questionably developed Polaroid’s, postcards from friends, along with numerous double page spreads on artists that Trixie doesn’t care for.

She’s grown to appreciate them regardless, and chuckles to herself when her eyes land on Pearls unmade bed. The blankets are tousled, some draping down onto the floorboards that Trixie had loathed in the winter months but now cherishes in summer. She has half a mind to pick them up, knows that Pearl won’t do so until she returns next fall if she’s left to her own devices, but then she’s reminded of the messages that are popping, akin to bubbles on her screen.

There are three new ones, and the total accumulates to eight when they’re added to the ones that Trixie’s still yet to read.

**2:42pm**

**I just got into Chicago! I’m about half an hour from your dorms, I think**

**Wait I think I’m closer than that! Maybe twenty minutes?**

**Who cares, I’ll be there soon! Fuck Trixie I can’t believe I haven’t seen you for almost a month**

**Also before you come at me for texting and driving, I’m stuck at a stop light bitch**

**Ok I’ve got to go, fifteen minutes!!**

**3:01pm**

**I’M IN THE PARKING LOT**

**YOU’VE GOT APPROXIMATELY TWO MINUTES BEFORE MY ASS IS BUSTING INTO YOUR ROOM**

**Get ready, I’m a sweaty tired mess who needs love from her girlfriend**

They’re all from Katya; they cause Trixie’s face to erupt into a grin that stretches from cheek to cheek, ear to ear, and she sets her phone face down onto the bed besides her. She doesn’t type out a reply, knows that she’s got seconds before Katya will be bounding through the door, her hair scraped away from her face and her clothing damp with sweat.

Trixie can’t wait to see it. They haven’t seen each other in person since Katya’s birthday - the first of May - and Trixie already misses her words and her touch, her demeanour and her attitude. It’s only been a month, Trixie scalds herself, but finds herself not caring when she catches sight of the framed picture of herself and Katya that she has sitting pretty on her bedside table. 

Her grin stretches further.

She’s alive with anticipation, the knowledge that Katya’s within touching distance, is climbing the three flights of stairs to Trixie’s dorm room because of the elevator that’s perpetually broken. Trixie wants to run, wants to meet her half way, but then the door to Trixie’s room is flying open, and Katya’s there, her wide beam mirroring Trixie’s.

Her feet carry her into the room until she’s standing in front of Trixie who’s lifted herself from where she had been sat, cross legged on the springy bed. The door slams behind her - Trixie would recoil if her veins weren’t buzzing with adrenaline - and she’s wrapping her arms around Trixie in an embrace that’s bone crushing, tear inducing.

Trixie buries her face into the crook of Katya’s neck, her nose pressed into her shoulder as Katya’s hands weave themselves beneath her shirt, press down on the small of her back that’s prickled with sweat. She hums into Katya’s skin that’s tanned, bordering on sunburnt, and inhales the smell of Katya’s cologne.

It’s warm, spiced in a way that always catches in the back of Trixie’s throat, but Katya’s whispering _Trixie Trixie Trixie_ over and over again into her ear, is kissing up her jaw and to her cheeks when Trixie pulls away to face her.

“Fuck-“. Katya breathes, dips her thumb into the dimple that curls on Trixie’s left cheek.

“-Look at you, so pretty”. She hums.

Trixie blushes under the scrutiny, drops her chin to her chest when Katya loops her arms loosely around Trixie’s neck. She pulls them closer, bats her eyelashes against Trixie’s cheek that’s still aflame, glowing pink.

“I’ve missed you, you giant idiot”.Trixie responds, grazes her lips against Katya’s with a painful delicacy. Katya whimpers, and Trixie giggles softly, slots her lips together with Katya’s once more with intent. They kiss reverently, passionately, tongues caressing one and other and fingernails digging into backs, shoulders, hips.

Trixie’s body tingles; she can feel pins and needles stabbing at her limbs, embedding themselves in her bones that are cracking beneath the pressure of the feeling of home. Katya feels like familiarity, everything she’s grown to love encompassed into one person with choppy blonde hair and bright blue eyes that Trixie swears are green, no matter how much Katya argues otherwise.

Katya allows Trixie to tangle her fingers in her hair. It’s damp at the roots, curling at the ends, and Trixie notes that Katya’s lightened the strands since she’d last seen her, four long weeks ago, to a paler blonde that stands out against her skin tone. She likes it, she decides, likes how she can see Katya’s natural darker blonde growing through from her scalp. 

“I’ve missed you too-“. Katya breathes into the kiss.

“-Like, a lot”. She pulls away from the kiss entirely after a final peck that echoes, reverberates around the room, and walks Trixie backwards until they’re both able to sit on the edge of Trixie’s neatly made bed, their shoulders pressed together. Trixie rests her head on Katya’s shoulder, toys with the fingers of Katya’s right hand that’s placed on her knee, tapping idly.

“We’ve got all summer”. Trixie points out gleefully.

 _They’ve got all summer._  

Three months. 

It’s a thought that fills Trixie with elation, knowing that she gets to return to Milwaukee with Katya by her side. Katya’s driven for hours to be Trixie’s ride, only to drive another two hours or so out of the city and into the Midwestern town that Trixie’s longed for since she left; she doesn’t understand why when she’s never cared for it before.

Trixie wants to be able to wrap her arms around Raina in an embrace that wouldn’t be welcomed, she assumes - Raina’s never been the type for affection - and wants to drift off into an afternoon slumber whilst the boys, Dylan and Riley, scream at each other about sports games that are irrelevant in Trixie’s eyes.

She wants to be able to revisit the previous summer, too. She knows that the place will conjure up a sense of deja vu, and isn’t opposed to living briefly in the nostalgia because she’s more than comfortable with the present, with Katya and their relationship that’s developed akin to a roll of film tape, full in colour and depth. 

“Can you believe it’s been a year?”. Katya chuckles to herself.

Trixie can. 

“Absolutely”.

She feels older, yet just as young as she did when they met. Trixie’s nearly twenty one - she knows in the grand scheme of things that she’s still young, younger than most - and appreciates each new fine line on Katya’s face, each apparent forehead crease on her own. It’s something she never thought she’d be able to do, but Katya’s hand is in hers, and she’s grinning at Trixie like they’ve got hundreds of years ahead of them ready to be fulfilled, enough summers to stretch out for as long as they require.

Trixie loves it. 

“Where’s Pearl?”. Katya adds as an afterthought, motions towards Pearls unmade bed, the bag of makeup that’s been strewn across it haphazardly. Trixie huffs out a laugh that’s been stuck in her chest, and signals towards the doorway where Trixie can make out Pearls distinct ramblings, a string of curses - _fuck shit fuck_ \- as she trails along the hallway, elbows clattering against walls.

“She should be back any second”.

Trixie’s right.

She barges into the room with a lack of elegance that Trixie could have predicted, her arms ladened with sketchbooks and bags of art supplies.

Trixie knows that she’s just completed her last minute dash of the art studio that she shares with a group of fellow students downtown, ready to cart them back to Brooklyn for the summer, and breathes a sigh of relief when Pearl succeeds in setting them down on aforementioned cluttered bed without dropping anything else.

Pearl follows said supplies, balances herself on the edge of the bed that Trixie’s surprised hasn’t collapsed under the weight of everything covering it, and crosses her legs beneath herself in an attempt to steady her breathing. She’s winded; Trixie doesn’t blame her, knows that she would be too if she had to climb all three flights of stairs with the extra weight of books, canvases, and looks on empathetically.

Trixie’s the first to lock eyes with Pearl when she looks up, spots her and Katya sat shoulder to shoulder. Pearl grins wildly, rearranges her body so that she’s sat straighter, plants her sneaker clad feet firmly on the ground. Trixie returns her enthusiasm, as does Katya, who offers a minute wave in lieu of a verbal greeting.

“Hey dykes!”. Pearl hails.

Her voice breaks through the serenity that had settled over the room, and she stands after she shakes her hair free from the floral hair tie that she’d had it secured in. It flows down her back, and she’s quick to tuck the frizzing tendrils behind her ear when she approaches both Trixie and Katya, pulls them into a brief grasp.

“Nice to see you too, Pearl”. Katya jibes, shoves Pearl jokingly away from her.

Pearl chuckles, and Trixie watches her interact with Katya with a smile on her face and a tugging in her heart, adoration in her eyes and a feeling of contentment in her gut.

They launch into a spiel of recollections - _how have you been? You must be exhausted! Please tell me you didn’t drive all the way from Boston_ \- and Trixie sits back, is at peace with being excluded from a conversation for once in her life, albeit unintentionally. She marvels at the way that they slip into talks of Pearls experimental project that she plans to finish over summer, and Katya’s new found love for early morning yoga.

Trixie adores the both of them. 

She doesn’t think that they’ve met each other more than a handful of times throughout the course of the year, whenever Katya had payed a fleeting visit to Chicago.

They’d clicked instantly - Trixie doesn’t know what she’d been expecting - over a bottle of wine that they’d passed around in Trixie and Pearls dorm room, congregated on the floor between both beds, with Pearl complaining about being the third wheel until Violet had joined them.

She knows that they work, all four of them, and Trixie’s brought back to the present when Katya suggests going to the nearest café that’s a block away. She knows that it’ll hold them back an hour or two, will prevent them from hitting the road back to Milwaukee, but she finds herself not caring when Katya links one arm with hers and one with Pearls, begins walking towards the door with both of them giggling disbelievingly. 

Trixie feels lucky.

*****

**Violet: TRIXIE MATTEL**

**Violet: Adore just text me telling me she saw all of you guys down at the café**

**Violet: Are you really out here lesbianing without me? I feel betrayed**

**Trixie: HAHA I’m sorry! We’re all here! Come down if you’re free!**

**Violet: Bitch I’m already on my way, what do you take me for?**

**Trixie: Pearl really didn’t tell you we were going?**

**Violet: Pearl has the common sense levels of a three year old on acid, what did you expect?**

**Trixie: you have a point**

**Violet: Haha obviously!! Anyway, I’m taking the subway right now, I should be there in ten minutes, ish**

**Trixie: That’s cool! We’re at the usual table**

**Violet: Great! Tell katya I can’t wait for her lecture about the benefits of yoga, and tell Pearl she owes me an orgasm**

**Trixie: You’re gross, I hate you**

**Violet: All of the love!!**

*****

Trixie and Katya don’t leave the café until seven that evening.

The sun is already setting by the time that they pile themselves and Trixie’s minimal luggage into the trunk of Katya’s jeep, and the sky is cast in oranges and purples and pinks as they merge on to the crowded highway.

Trixie knows that it’s going to be a long ride as she glances out towards the cars that are coming to a standstill, and resides herself to making herself comfortable for the journey. Katya tells her that they’ll be lucky to make it to Wisconsin by ten at this rate, despite it being a meagre two hour drive, and Trixie groans audibly, slumps into the passenger seat that’s surrounded by wrappers of snacks that she’s already torn into.

She picks up another fun sized pack of gummies with a huff, offers one to Katya who shakes her head dismissively.

“I can’t believe you don’t like gummies”. Trixie sulks, turns the dial on the car radio so that the voices piercing through the speakers are lowered to whispers. Katya scoffs, pulls in to the right hand lane with ease, one hand on the steering wheel and the other on Trixie’s knee.

“I can’t believe you _like_ them“. Katya responds.

She begins coasting her hand further up the expanse of Trixie’s thigh. Trixie rolls her eyes, though bites back the smile that threatens to rise to her cheeks at Katya’s ministrations as she places her own hand atop of Katya’s. She squeezes once, strokes her thumb across Katya’s knuckles.

“It’s hard for me to take your opinion seriously when you like sushi”. Trixie dramatises.

She chews down on a heart shaped gummy that’s strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, and Katya grimaces at the noise that pops from Trixie’s mouth, digs her clipped nails into Trixie’s thighs that are spreading, stretching the material of her cut off shorts. She can feel the skin of her legs sticking to the leather of the car seats with sweat, and curses her lack of restraint.

Katya continues touching half heartedly, furrows her eyebrows in concentration when they approach a stop light that’s flickering from amber to red. She’s forced to ease up the force that she’s exerting on the gas pedal, only to pick it back up once more when the lights turn green; Trixie hates them for not staying red for longer. 

They haven’t had sex for a month, Trixie notes, begrudges the distance for only allowing them the occasional bout of phone sex that had always left Trixie less than satisfied, craving more of Katya, her touches and her words that she would breath into Trixie’s peaked ears.

Katya’s hand persists, then, and Trixie’s left discarding her now empty packed of gummies, allowing the plastic wrap to float to the carpeted floor of the car. She tilts her head back, flutters her eyes closed momentarily when Katya’s fingertips brush up against the hem of her shorts. 

Trixie wishes she was wearing a skirt.

“You know I’m ‘gonna have to argue with that, right? What more could you want than rice and vegetables!”. Katya squeaks.

“For my food not to taste like the bottom of the ocean”. Trixie grumbles.

Katya rolls her eyes at Trixie’s retort, but Trixie doesn’t care; she’s closing her legs, whilst dropping her chin and opening her eyes, trapping Katya’s hand where it’s sat covering the patch of denim between her thighs. Katya smirks out towards the road, observes Trixie knowingly out of the corner of her eye. It’s infuriating, but Katya has more strength in her one arm than Trixie has in the majority of her body, and she’s pulling her hand away from Trixie, clutching the steering wheel with white knuckles.

Trixie does nothing but whine in exasperation.

*****

They’re over half way into the journey when Trixie cracks.

She’s wet, soaking, is past the point of even attempting to deny it with Katya’s hand that’s back on her thigh, stroking and pinching relentlessly. Her eyes remain locked on the road ahead, but Trixie knows that she holds most of Katya’s undivided attention; she’d be mad and anxious if it wasn’t for the quietness of the late evening lanes. 

It’s just after nine o’clock, and the sun has set completely with the exception of a dark, burnt orange hue that tints the surrounding landscapes. It causes Trixie’s vision to blur into hazy speckles that she tries futilely to blink away, and Katya chuckles beneath her breath when Trixie begins shuffling, shifting lower in her seat.

“I think we’ll be back by ten”. Katya assures.

She takes her eyes off of the road momentarily in order to smirk devilishly at Trixie, and Trixie shakes her head in dismay. She crosses and then uncrosses her legs, whacks her knee into the dashboard with a groan and a bite to her lip. Katya winces for her, but then Trixie’s turning towards her defiantly, staring Katya down until she wilts beneath her gaze.

“No-“. Trixie asserts, signals towards a near by empty side road.

“-Pull over. Now”.

“What?”.

“I _said_ pull over”.

Trixie all but growls her words, and Katya chooses not to debate any further, knows that arguing would prove inefficient with the way that Trixie’s already unbuckling her seat belt, scrambling into the back seats of the jeep as Katya puts the car into park. She lands with a huff, and Katya takes a second, two seconds, three seconds to centre herself, swallow down the tension that’s risen in the back of her throat.

She surveys the area surrounding them, crinkles her nose in disgust when she spots the stacks of abandoned metal and wood that have been discarded at the side of the road, left to rust and rot.

They’re off putting, in some ways - Katya knows that she’s either about to get fucked or fuck Trixie like she know that she’s been needing for hours - and she’s not above admitting that she’d wished she’d stopped earlier in the journey, ten miles or so ago when they had been engulfed by tall pines and oaks, sycamores and Elms.

Trixie doesn’t seem to bat an eyelid; she’s ushering Katya to join her, mumbling turn the music up as Katya clambers between the seats to join her, her own hands already working at taking off her own clothing. The shirt is first to be flung to the floor, followed by her shorts that are damp where they’d been pressed between her legs. 

Katya grins down at Trixie, her spine pressed up against the door, the glass of the window that’s fogging beneath her skin. She’s braless, It’s a fact Katya had been aware of since they’d embraced in Trixie’s dorm, Trixie’s puffy nipples pressing against hers through the thin cotton.

Trixie doesn’t seem to care about that, either, and is parting her legs to make way for Katya, exposing herself and her dripping underwear to Katya’s blown out pupils.

The material is a pale blue where it hasn’t been soaked by Trixie’s wetness, and Katya’s quick to reach down between their bodies, drag her finger up through Trixie’s lips that she knows are sensitive even through the garment. Trixie’s hips buck against her palm, and Katya snorts out a chuckle, leans forward in order to plant her lips on the side of Trixie’s neck.

“You’ve ‘gotta let me fuck you”. Trixie interrupts, her words concluding in a whine.

She pushes Katya backwards to the opposite side of the seats with all the energy that she’s able to muster, and Katya’s eyes boggle. She knows it’s a rare occurrence that Trixie takes charge in a way that’s more than domineering, wanton, her eyes dark and dilated, and relishes in the feeling of Trixie’s nails scratching against her sun scorched skin.

Katya loves it - she tells herself she’d be delusional not to -and nods her head rapidly as Trixie begins tugging down her shorts. She allows her to do so, and lifts her own shirt over her head in order to speed up the process. Trixie’s looking up at her from between her legs like she’s a woman on a mission; a mission to make Katya come as hard as she knows how, and Katya’s not going to stop her when Trixie’s palming at Katya with one hand and herself with the other.

“I love eating you out like this”. Trixie groans.

She urges Katya to lift her hips in order to remove her underwear, and Katya does so within seconds, giggles airily when Trixie rips them off of her, tugs them down the length of her legs with one hand. The other is still occupied, rubbing hard, slow circles into her own clit, and Katya knows that she’s already close to coming from her short pants and slurred speech.

Katya isn’t bothered by it. Trixie’s mouth is on her before she can complain, her tongue flicking against Katya’s lips and folds, her clit, like she’s been starving for weeks - Katya guesses that she has - and Katya’s weaving a hand into Trixie’s wavy hair as Trixie’s tongue dips inside of her.

She clenches around it, feels the vibrations of Trixie’s moans travel down to her toes and up to her chest, through to her mind that’s both hazy and hyper focused, fucked out yet concentrated entirely on _Trixie Trixie Trixie_. 

Trixie peers up at her through heavy lidded eyes, blinks in slow motion as she wraps her lips around Katya’s clit, hollows out her cheeks with suction. Katya’s eyes roll back into her head at the sight, but then she’s opening them once more as she feels Trixie tremble against her; Katya can tell without even asking that she’s made herself come against her own nimble fingers.

“Jesus, that’s so hot”. Katya hums her praise.

She whimpers when Trixie lifts her mouth in order to grin blissfully, shifts so that she’s able to climb up the length of Katya’s body that’s shivering, her chest heaving with ragged breaths. Trixie’s body is working at a slower pace - it happens when she comes, Katya’s more than well acquainted with it - and she’s straddling Katya’s thigh lethargically, trailing wetness across her skin.

“Make me come-“. Katya rambles.

“- _Please_ make me come”. She finishes.

Trixie nods her head in understanding, knows that Katya’s too worked up to be kept on edge for any longer, and presses her lips to Katya’s; a confirmation that she’ll make her do so as she trails a hand between their bodies once again.

Katya sighs in relief, kisses Trixie through the two fingers that enter her, curl upwards towards their goal. She babbles unintelligibly into Trixie’s mouth that tastes of sugar, strawberry and vanilla, and then she’s coming, hard, screwing up her eyes to the sound of grainy country music and the bright light from the street lamp above that trickles through the darkness.

“Fuck”. Katya brushes her hair from her eyes.

Trixie simply giggles, unwinds herself from Katya moments later once she’s regained enough of her energy, begins throwing on her long forgotten clothes that are bundled into balls on the floor of the jeep that’s been taken over my candy wrappers and empty water bottles.

Katya doesn’t believe that she’s real.

*****

They’ve been back in Milwaukee for over two weeks when Katya suggests paying a visit to the lake that’s a short drive away.

It’s a sweltering Saturday, and Trixie agrees wordlessly, finds herself ushering Raina, Dylan and Riley into Katya’s jeep before she’s even fully woken up from her slumber that’s left her drowsy, disoriented.

Trixie finds it all maddening; Raina’s as tall as herself, now, and Dylan and Riley have sprouted to be taller than Katya in the year that Trixie’s been absent. She doesn’t understand it, is unable to comprehend how quick they’re maturing, growing up to be young adults and teenagers that Trixie admires. She’s proud of them beyond their knowledge, despite using the entirety of the journey towards the lake to grill Raina on her relationship with Dustin.

She tells Trixie - along with Katya who listens supportively - about how they’ve been together for almost six months, and that he makes her _happy_ , makes her feel _special_.

I get _butterflies_.

It should seem juvenile, Trixie tells herself, but she gets it, would be an idiot not to when she knows that she’s spent the better part of the last year infatuated with the woman sat to her right. She hums approvingly as she laces her fingers with Katya’s that rest on her knee cap, and nods graciously as Raina informs them that Dustin will be joining them at the lake, too.

He arrives before they do, true to his word, and greets them with a shy wave as they hop out of the confines of the jeep one by one, from where he’s loitering against the hood of his mud dusted car. His hair is curly, piled messily on top of his head in a manner that’s reminiscent of an _80’s_ perm, Trixie thinks, though she doesn’t doubt that it’s natural. His eyes are dark to match, a hazel that he uses to glance at Raina adoringly, before he’s pulling her into his chest with soft arms and mumbled _hello’s_.

Trixie approves of him instantly.

They manoeuvre themselves and their beach towels over to the side of the lake once Katya’s emptied the entirety of the jeep, as do Dylan and Riley. Trixie marvels at them, compares their behaviour to what it would have been a year ago; erratic and unpredictable.

It’s different, this time around, is obvious in the way that the boys merely converse amongst themselves, disregard the idea of causing a ruckus in the lake with their soccer balls and popsicles. Trixie watches them discuss the one comic book that they’d brought with them, grins to herself when Katya sits herself down on the towel next to her, points out the interaction as if it wasn’t already making Trixie’s heart swell in her chest.

“They’ve grown up a lot, huh?”. Katya questions, receives a short, distracted nod from Trixie. 

 _They have_.

She can’t get it out of her mind; they’re thirteen and seventeen respectively, a year older and more independent than Trixie recalls them being. Raina has her drivers license, doesn’t hesitate in driving the rover that their father had bought her wherever she likes and whenever she wishes to do so, providing she’s back before her curfew of midnight.

The boys are almost in high school. Trixie finds the thought baffling when she thinks back to her own childhood, witnesses glimpses of two tiny toddlers wreaking havoc in their back yard. She’s watched them grow, watched them develop into teenagers that she knows anybody would admire, and looks on with pride flaming in her gut as they busy themselves with skimming stones across the lake; Katya had taught them how to do it.

Her eyes flicker back towards Raina and Dustin.

Raina has her head resting in Dustin’s lap, his hand working it’s way through her hair. Her eyes are closed in bliss, her skin soaking up the sun as her ears capture each word that Dustin mutters under his breath from the novel that Trixie assumes he’s reading to her.

It makes her reminisce on the months that have flown by, a whirlwind of life and events that have placed brick on top of brick, cemented her existence. She’s spent each month since September visiting Katya, alternating weekends in Boston and Chicago, even spending Thanksgiving with Katya’s family and using the last days of their Christmas vacation to fly to New York together.

They’re memories that Trixie predicts will be etched into their corner of the universe for as long as Trixie maintains them, works on them with Katya at her side. She doesn’t doubt it for a second, and evens out her breathing when she feels Katya’s arm wrap around her shoulders, her skin already tanning in the while that she’s been bathing in sunlight. 

“‘You alright?-“. Katya queries tentatively, pushes her sunglasses back onto her head.

“-You seem a ‘lil, spacey?”.

Her words are uncertain, and Trixie shakes her head before nodding it once again. She leans in to Katya’s touch, takes the ice cream cone that Katya’s offering her fresh from the cooler with a soft _thank you_. Katya shrugs her shoulders, peels the corner of the paper wrapper away from the cone with her free hand as Trixie holds it steadily.

“I’m so alright-“. Trixie laughs.

“-I’m so _so_ alright right now”.

Katya doesn’t pry any further, and Trixie’s thankful for it until seconds later when she’s standing once again, pulling Trixie up with her andcharging towards the bank of the lake. Trixie squeals, grips onto Katya’s hand as she stumbles over her backpack that she’d neglected to kick to the side, and groans when she drops her barely touched ice cream cone to the ground.

It shatters, smashes into jigsaw pieces that Trixie doesn’t dare put back together - she knows that there’s more in the cooler from how prepared Katya naturally is - and she glances back at the fragments briefly before she’s striding into the chilled waters.

They pool around her ankles, and then her thighs and eventually her chest as she delves in further, feels her hair forming a blanket around her. It sends a sense of deja vu barrelling her way, and she chuckles at her own predictability when her hands travel from Katya’s waist to her wrist, find the singular hair tie that she knows Katya wears on a daily basis.

Katya allows her to pull it off of her, over her hand with a slight tug. She assists Trixie with wringing the water from her hair, before she’s braiding it loosely, down the expanse of Trixie’s shoulder and over her chest that’s barely contained by the same white bikini; it’s an image that’s burnt itself into Katya’s dreams.

Trixie ties it off at the end, shifts her weight from one foot to the other - left to right - as Katya takes a step forward, slings her arms around Trixie’s neck. She yanks them closer, nibbles at her bottom lip when Trixie’s breasts press up against her own, their hips flush against one and others.

Katya beams adoringly.

“Make out!”. Raina interrupts.

Rolling her eyes, Trixie scoffs. Raina’s still sat on the opposite side of the lake, her head resting in Dustin’s lap as he observes the situation unfolding before him. He looks on innocently, but Raina knows the both of them, can see Katya craning her neck to meet Trixie’s lips and Trixie bending to match her efforts. They’re breathing hotly directly into each other’s faces, giggling and grinning and granting one and other the unspoken permission to close the remaining millimetres between them.

“Your sister _still_ has good ideas”. Katya husks, waits for Trixie to agree.

“I know-“. Trixie laughs, bumps her nose against Katya’s

“-I know, god damn it. Just kiss me, Katya”.

 _Katya does_.

**Author's Note:**

> i’m also on tumblr!! @ silvervelour, come and bombard me with asks/messages


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